


they used to shout my name (now they whisper it)

by badacts, broship_addict, PuckB



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AFTG Big Bang 2017, M/M, Urban Magic AU, Witch AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 21:31:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 46,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11677482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badacts/pseuds/badacts, https://archiveofourown.org/users/broship_addict/pseuds/broship_addict, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuckB/pseuds/PuckB
Summary: Neil is a bound witch on the run, making a choice between fleeing, slavery, and death. To Andrew, he looks like a useful weapon - at first.It turns out that ‘useful’ isn’t all he is.





	1. in chaos, calculation

**Author's Note:**

> This is my work for the AFTG Big Bang 2017!
> 
> My artists [broship-addict](http://broship-addict.tumblr.com/) and [coldcigarettes](http://coldcigarettes.tumblr.com/) produced some stunning works for this fic, and were amazing to work with - I'm very lucky! Make sure you check out, like and reblog their posts for this fic on tumblr!
> 
> A massive thanks to ilgaksu for the beta <3
> 
> A minor warning for similar themes as the series (abuse (child/sexual), violence) but nothing particularly graphic.
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 

Modern covens aren’t like the old-fashioned ones, but the Fox Coven is more unconventional than most. For one thing, they don’t live in one giant den of iniquity in a backwater town, close to the trees and the moon and what-the-fuck-ever-else.

To be fair, Andrew’s lot does live in a _small_ den of iniquity, forced into close quarters by promises drawn far tighter than blood. But it’s a city apartment, at least. Probably closer to the moon, and definitely further away from the wild animals covens attract like crazy.

What it does mean is travel. Covens are by nature tightly knit, and even the Monsters aren’t immune. That necessity is what sees Andrew - and, of course, Kevin - travelling three quarters of the way across the city to Renee and Allison’s townhouse on a bitter cold Tuesday afternoon.

Renee’s taste for pretty and Allison’s for pink means their two-bedroom in the suburbs looks just like a gingerbread house. It’s in contrast to the wards, which are blood-bound and harder than stone to anyone with the senses to feel them. Knitted into them are Andrew’s own specialty, centered in the gardens and asleep with winter peace.

Except, when Kevin and Andrew approach, they aren’t asleep. The roses are whispering loud enough even Kevin can probably hear them, murmuring of their taste for blood underneath their repetition of Andrew’s command to _wait and hold_. They’re sentinels, all thorns and hunger, nurtured by Andrew from seedlings and planted here for just this purpose.

Allison’s in the doorway, confined to the front stoop by the sudden explosion of rose vines across what was a beautifully manicured lawn. The captive in the centre of the thorns has gone still - they never fight for long, with the threat of inch-long thorns aimed at eyes and all the other tender spots. They aren’t designed to kill, only capture, and maim a little if necessary.

They shiver and retreat from Andrew’s touch, quiescing. Like all plants, they resist against anything that isn’t growth, but Andrew never has to ask twice. Only the centre-most vines remain, curled around wrists and ankles like manacles, to reveal their prize ward-breaker.

And there - there’s a surprise.

That he’s old blood is unmistakeable. Besides the one at his back and the tiny collection with the Foxes, Andrew hasn’t met many of them, but the fondness for tattoos is something of a giveaway. In contrast to the simple numeral on Kevin’s face, this man wears a curling collar of claws and wings, jet black and pulsing with power. It marks him instantly for what he is: pureblood. Slave. Something a coven far more powerful than theirs will be dearly missing.

He’s only bleeding a little, delicate scratches on his cheeks and forearms. His gaze, when it flickers to Andrew - he’s turned away from the house like he was already trying to run - is hateful and afraid.

“Who the hell are you?” Allison demands, all fire, as she rounds the last roses to get a look at the intruder’s face. The real threat is behind her, quiet but hard-eyed. Renee hasn’t lived this long by being gentle in the face of potential threats.

“Silly question,” Andrew tells her. “You should be asking Kevin that. Because that’s a Raven.”

“No he isn’t,” Kevin replies, but he’s studying the tattoo with puzzlement. It’s a Raven brand, designating a glorified power-pack indentured to the coven for life. Andrew would know: both his wrists are encircled with a version of it tied to the Fox Coven. Punishment, or something like it.

“No I’m not,” the man says for himself. His voice is rough, and he looks at Kevin with ill certainty all over his face. “I didn’t realise you were one of _them_.”

It’s not immediately obvious who he’s talking to, but it’s clear who he means by _them_. The Foxes aren’t the most well-liked group even amongst witches, never mind amongst the general populace. But everyone knows that Kevin is a Fox now, just like everyone knows Andrew is.

Renee steps forwards so she and the stranger are eye to eye. “I’ve been a Fox for a long time. But I’ll help you if I can.”

And that makes sense. Renee, with her soft heart and all the skills that have seen her this far, has a sideline venture in helping the hopeless claw themselves into better situations. Andrew isn’t one of the Foxes she asks for help, but he can still recognise a hopeless case when he sees one.

“You can’t help me,” the man snarls back. He twists at his bonds, drawing blood at his wrists, but he doesn’t even seem to register the bite. “ _Let me go_.”

There’s an indrawn breath from over Andrew’s shoulder, sharp with shock.

“I know who you are,” Kevin murmurs on his exhalation. When Andrew throws him a glance, he’s deathly pale, his gaze scanning the intruder’s face over and over like he wishes that he didn’t.

The man wears the same expression, but he still says, “I am distinctive,” in a tone that’s nearly mocking.

“Go on. Don’t hold us in suspense,” Andrew recommends to Kevin. “For a start, it’s cold. The roses are hungry.”

They need something to maintain their unseasonal and unnatural liveliness. This auburn-headed scrap will keep them sated for an entire season.

Green eyes meet blue for a long, charged moment. Kevin says, “You shouldn’t have come here.”

“I’m not going to stay,” is the reply from man who looks like he could happily lie down and die in the cold if it meant an end to everything, ferocity or no. “I’m a Wesninski. I don’t have a choice.”

Andrew’s brain reframes the man - that hair, the softer lines of a more youthful face, the Raven tattoo. “You don’t look like Nathan.”

That’s not quite true. Andrew has met Nathan Wesninski once, and there are certainly similarities. The differences that kept Andrew from recognising him immediately are all in the expression - there’s none of the same all-consuming frigidity, no utter surety in his power and control.

The same, but different. “I presume you’re the younger, then. Not as dead as everyone says you are.”

“Not yet,” Nathaniel says grimly. “Let me go, green mage.”

It’s been a long time since Andrew has been called that old-fashioned title. “You know my name.”

“Before I burn your precious roses down,” Nathaniel continues, as though Andrew hasn’t spoken.

“No one ever taught you how to ask nicely?”

“That is me asking nicely,” says the son of one of the most powerful Raven witches. Nathan Wesninski is fire, but Nathaniel feels like lightning. Like something barely restrained, wearing a collar with no chain attached. Like someone who, in lesser-known rumours, was a gift to the Moriyamas, but who fled before he could be tied blood and bone and magic to their Circle. Like someone who could be a weapon in their grasp.

Andrew waves a hand carelessly, and the roses sink back to their original forms as though they never moved. Nathaniel doesn’t move besides his fingers, which stretch at his sides in aborted spell-casting gestures. The stench of ozone doubles, triples - the scent of a weather mage, and one at the thin edge of control. His eyes don’t move off of Andrew, even with Renee and Allison right there next to him.

“You’re running,” Andrew says. “But you’re tired of it. You wouldn’t have come here if you weren’t looking for a way out. So let me offer you a deal instead.”

It’s not altruism. If Nathaniel is truly the weapon rumour says he is, then it’s better to keep him here under Fox control than see him turned over to the Ravens.

Even if he’s just a bomb waiting to go off, Andrew can always throw him at Riko and wait for the destruction to happen.

“What do you want?” Nathaniel asks, his suspicion exaggerated like he thinks Andrew might not notice it otherwise. “In exchange.”

“Oh, just a little help with something,” Andrew says, and smiles.

 

* * *

 

Nathaniel rides back in Andrew’s car, rather than Allison’s. It’s interesting – considering Nathaniel was apparently looking for a savior in Renee, it would have perhaps seemed logical for him to stick close to her.

Instead, he slips into the backseat behind Kevin. His wrists aren’t bleeding anymore, crusted dry with scabs instead. He has absolutely no reason to trust Andrew. Andrew wonders if he thinks that he can fight his way free, if it becomes necessary.

He might be right. In another situation, Andrew wouldn’t care to find out the answer – unfortunately, Kevin is here, which means he has to.

“So, how do you two know each other?” Andrew asks, because the silence is irritating in a way it usually isn’t, all the barely-packed-down power of two mages feeding off their own anxiety. Most of Andrew is the stillness of old growth, like trees far more ancient than the people shading under their branches, but that’s not all he is. The concentration of roiling magic in the air is enough to stir that part of him.

“Kevin watched my father kill a man once,” Nathaniel replies, his face tilted away from them and out the window.

“You know how we know each other,” Kevin snaps at Andrew, with a sharp wave at his own face.

“I’m interested in the specifics,” Andrew says, and Kevin opens his mouth to call Andrew a liar. Nathaniel beats him to it.

“I don’t think that’s true,” he says, eyes stone in the rearview mirror. “I think you’re wondering how much of a Raven I am. Or Crow.”

He’s right. Andrew smiles and doesn’t answer, turning into the apartment parking lot and taking his usual space. Opening the door causes a mingling of still night air with the charge inside of the car, almost setting it to sparking. It prickles bright over Andrew’s skin.

“Your control is awful,” Kevin says to Nathaniel, tone as sour as it would be with any of the Foxes.

“Fuck you,” Nathaniel replies. If they were friends once, that’s long forgotten. Maybe it was washed away with the blood of the man Nathan killed. Andrew doesn’t think so, though – this seems more raw than that.

“Don’t blame him,” Andrew says. “He is an elemental, after all.”

The pair of them both go still, looking to Andrew and then at each other with careful sharp eyes. With a note of teasing, Andrew asks Kevin, “What, couldn’t you tell?”

“Takes one to know one,” Nathaniel says, aimed at Andrew but said without looking away from Kevin.

“True,” Andrew says, with relish. He’s looking at Kevin too, and he thinks the _try to pay attention Day_ is clear in his expression.

‘Elemental’ is just a catchy name for what they are, and not even a particularly accurate one at that. Witches are, after all, all connected to an element in one way or another. The closer you are to the base elements, the more powerful you are, and those who are cross-elemental are more powerful still. Or so people say.

Kevin might be unobservant in that he didn’t grow up with correctly classing people by their ability to hurt him. That doesn’t make him any less elemental than the two of them, his power like bristling wind and flame, a forest fire that he’s through brute force and determination turned into the purest kind of weapon. It’s where the power meets the man that’s important though, and Kevin isn’t really interested in weapons at all.

That didn’t make him a good Crow. The jury is still out on whether it will make him a good Fox.

Nathaniel is a weather mage – air and water at the heart of it. A classic but rare example of their kind, currently notable for both his power and his complete lack of control. Elementals are known for the latter, too: Andrew would know.

He’s green growth and the earth and the stone and the things that lie deeper underneath it all. His control has always been a tightrope, which is now a plank of wood wide enough to stand on as long as he wears fetters. Slavery, savior – it’s all the same to him.

“Well, I suppose that makes three of us,” Andrew says.

“Four,” Kevin corrects. “And this one isn’t a Fox yet.”

By the fourth, he means Aaron. Andrew waves him aside, turning for the front door of the apartment complex as Allison’s car pulls in a few spaces down. They’ve diverted to pick up Dan and Matt on their way, and Andrew doesn’t fail to notice how Nathaniel follows close at Kevin’s heels to avoid them.

They have the penthouse apartment, but it’s less impressive than it sounds considering the neighbourhood. The building is damp-stained across the concrete and has a few suspicious cracks in the walls. It’s one of a series of identical eight-story blocks, grey hulks standing side-by-side like giants’ teeth.

It’s also perhaps one of the most secure ones in town, thanks to its inhabitants: besides having half a coven on the top floor, it’s also home to a family of naiads, a dryad who once told Aaron she bought the apartment directly under theirs because of them, a couple who Nicky swears are werewolves, and one faerie who Andrew never sees. Nicky says he’s shy – Aaron says he’s afraid of Andrew. There are humans too, either the blind kind attracted to the low prices and lack of crime, or the more aware sort who have their own reasons for sticking close.

There’s an elevator but it’s almost always broken, so they take the stairs. Andrew can hear the others gossiping in murmurs down below, but his two companions are stone-silent, other than the sounds of their feet moving.

The wards stretch and then part as they come inside, dismissed by the imprint of Andrew’s magic. He spent a week when they first moved here setting quartz stones into the walls at cardinal points and turning them into wards to be frightened of, adding a generous dose of Kevin’s kind of power when he joined them eight months later.

Sometimes, Andrew thinks about how this might be both the safest place he’s ever lived in, and the one he’s stayed in for the longest. Not for long, and not with much of a purpose, but the thought is there. Fox Coven, for all of its particular failings, has not so far failed him and his.

Nicky and Aaron are sitting on the couch in the living room, but they’ve both noticed the extra shadow against the wards. That means they’re sitting up and both look straight to the newcomer, who surprisingly doesn’t quail as he takes the pair of them in. To be fair, they aren’t an intimidating pair to look at. Nicky is wearing bright red sweatpants and a black shirt with ‘blink if you want me’ written on it in magenta, and Aaron has a thick leather-bound tome resting in his lap.

“Who the fuck is that?” Aaron asks, looking to Nathaniel’s tattooed throat and then his scabbing wrists. His fingers are tight at the spine of the book and the edge of the front cover, knuckles whitening.

He, of course, recognises Nathaniel for what he is - immediately, from the tattoo. That’s what comes of having a twin that’s the same kind of creature, and not being one of them himself by the skin of his teeth.

Aaron is powerful too. It’s just not the kind of power worth shackling, not amongst their kind. Not as long as they don’t look any deeper.

“Don’t be rude, Aaron,” Nicky corrects sharply. “Hi. I’m Nicky, this is Aaron, hopefully the other two have introduced themselves to you. What’s your name?”

Nathaniel stares back at him but says nothing. His gaze is evaluating. After a moment, Kevin says, “Nathaniel Wesninski.”

Both of their eyes instantly move to Andrew, but it’s Aaron who says, “Why is he _here_ ,” through gritted teeth.

“Why, are you worried?” Andrew asks him. “He’s running scared from the Ravens. What’s one more?”

“As though Day hasn’t already brought hell down on our heads,” Aaron starts, but he’s interrupted by a brisk knock at the door, followed by the appearance of the others. At their heels is Wymack, who either has the timing of a natural disaster or answered his cellphone on a Friday night when Renee called.

It’s probably the latter. Wymack is careful about coming here without an invitation, even knowing that the wards will let him in. A stupid person would probably assume it was out of fear – it’s not to be taken lightly, coming into the home of three elementals.

They would be wrong. Respect is something else altogether, it turns out. That’s a new concept for Andrew too.

Wymack doesn’t need to be told who their visitor is. His eyes go to the dark collar at Nathaniel’s throat, and then up to his face, and that’s enough for him. He says, “You’re supposed to be dead.”

The recognition seems to go both ways. Nathaniel’s expression is deeply wary when he replies, “Not quite.”

Wymack has never run in the same circles as the Ravens. He’s no proper old-blood witch, inbred and obsessed with power, for all his blood is just as pure and for all he was admitted into witch-princess Kayleigh Day’s circle before she died. He says himself he was never a potential Raven, and stayed away from them entirely until establishing the Fox Coven. That had meant butting heads with them, and sheltering their resident runaway brought that to a head six months ago.

This new rogue is perhaps more dangerous again than Kevin, and doubly-so the trouble that Andrew presented when he’d already turned the Crow Coven down.

Wymack says, “You should be dead, if you’ve been half-bound all this time.”

And that’s the trick of the spell that forms Nathaniel’s collar. It can’t exist without a proper leash, not without causing the witch wearing it to bleed magic over and over until they either lose their minds or lose control so completely they can’t recover it. And leaking power to witches like him means standing out like a beacon to every power-hungry coven close enough to sense it.

He should either be claimed by one of them, or dead.

“I haven’t been,” Nathaniel replies, and then bites his lip like he didn’t mean to say as much. It’s not all that surprising – the question is, who has he been running with all this time, and why are they not here now. “But I...I…”

There’s grief in him, which is either real or a very good act. Wymack raises a hand to stop him from going on. “It’s okay. So, you’re looking for somewhere to go. Is that right?”

“I can’t hide,” Nathaniel says, indicating his face and then his collar. “And I can’t run forever. There’s only so many options for someone like me.”

 _Servitude or death_. Breaking the spell comes under the second option, of course. Only the original casters can remove it, and even then the chances of surviving the backlash are low. Kevin’s singular tattoo might be removable by the right hand - Andrew and Allison have both offered to do it, with similar levels of tact - but that’s an entirely different kind of magic.

“He wouldn’t be the first of his kind to be a Fox.” That’s Kevin. It’s hard to tell if he’s more surprised that he just spoke up in defense of Nathaniel, or whether Nathaniel himself is.

It’s not exactly a giveaway, but from the flicker of Nathaniel’s eyes to Andrew he knows who Kevin means. Andrew drawls, “He isn’t the same as me.”

“I’m not a criminal,” Nathaniel says. Because that’s all Andrew is, after all - a murderer, a danger, someone impossible to kill and too talented to waste, but a perfect fit for a pair of shackles.

“So he has an old blood taste for high-and-mighty after all,” Andrew says, amused, his voice trickling poison. “It’s alright. You’ll fit right in here.”

Just like that, he’s earned the full strength of Nathaniel’s focus. Like all powerful witches, the force of it is its own beast, pressure that pushes forwards and meets the bounds of Andrew’s own magic. The air hums with it. Andrew doesn’t give ground.

“You brought me here,” Nathaniel says to him alone. “You’re the one who wants to make a deal. Lay out the limits of it, or I’ll leave now.”

Andrew smiles. “It’s very simple. We shelter you here. And in exchange, you become a Fox, with all the entails for our kind.”

He means _our_ in the sense of just the two of them, just to see the shades of distaste and recognition on the other man’s face.

“It would be war,” Nathaniel says. “If the Ravens found out I had come to you.”

His eyes say _and it wouldn’t be a war you would win._

“How do you know that isn’t what we want?” Andrew asks, because he can’t resist.

“You would have to be stupid to want that,” Nathaniel replies. He looks like he would be disappointed but unsurprised if that were the truth.

“Or suicidal,” Andrew suggests cheerfully. “You won’t know for sure unless you stay and find out.”

Nathaniel’s brow is furrowed. “And what makes you think that you can stand against them?”

He wants a show of force, rather than just proof that the lot of them are dabbling with the madness of fighting with the strongest coven on the this side of the country. Andrew won’t give it to someone he barely knows, because that’s a risk he isn’t prepared to take.

He waves a hand, indicating the others: Renee, her gentle eyes and the feel of her magic like the silence of the grave; Kevin, unbroken and singing with power; Aaron, unbound and pure, no weapon but all potential. “You won’t know that unless you stay, either.”

Nathaniel’s gaze flickers over them, searching. It’s no light decision he’s making here. The proof is more than anything in Andrew, and that’s where Nathaniel’s eyes return in the end.

Andrew’s fetters could make him a mindless automaton, a shivering wretch starved of his own power and tweaked out on the continual flow of magic through his body. Unceasing grin aside, that he’s standing here under his own control is a fragile kind of proof of what the Fox Coven really is.

Andrew was nearly a Raven, nearly a Crow. He knows he wouldn’t be like this if they were the ones who held his leash just as well as Nathaniel does.

“Just remember,” Andrew says when he gets bored of the silence. He gestures again at the other Foxes. “They could force you. This might be the last time you get afforded a choice.”

Nathaniel scowls, but that must hit home. He says, “Fine.”

“What kind of binding promise is that?” Aaron asks, arms crossed. The scowl Nathaniel shoots him is poisonous.

Then, the scowl twists. Their eye contact doesn’t break as Nathaniel takes a knee, not for the others, but for Andrew in particular. A power play, perfectly hidden in the bow of his spine and the lowering of his head.

 _“Obligo tibi me ipsum mandoque,_ ” he says, slow and portentous even though there’s no binding magic behind the words. He sounds like Kevin. He’s saying _I place myself under an obligation to you, and I give myself in trust to you._ His eyes say _break that trust and I’ll make you regret it._

That, Andrew suspects, is a promise.

 

* * *

 

Andrew doesn’t go to Nathaniel’s binding. He’s unnecessary to the process itself, and it’s familiar in a way that tastes bitter between his back teeth.

He remembers being forced to his knees, having his face pressed into the floor, hands burning against his wrists and tearing him apart. He remembers kneeling before Dan and Wymack to give up the fragile remnants of himself, less trusting of them than he was uncaring.

Uncaring, but willing to keep his bargains still. That’s something he remembers too. It’s something he thinks about when he looks at Nathaniel Wesninski, those rare moments when the weather witch is around these days.

Wymack took him when he left the other day, clearly not trusting Andrew with him. That was fine, because in the wake of Nathaniel’s arrival Andrew can’t stop second guessing his motives.

He has promises to keep. He won’t let a scrawny runt of a Raven prevent him from keeping them. And for all Nathaniel will be bound to them from now on, Andrew is well aware that it’s not a magical threat that might make Kevin turn tail and run. It’s whispers in his ears, and an outstretched hand from his old mentors and masters, ordering him back home.

Kevin, who’d said, _doesn’t this make you feel something?_ as he summoned fire, and looked brutally disappointed when Andrew laughed in his face. Kevin, who had made Andrew a promise of his own. Kevin, who Andrew doesn’t really believe is capable of keeping up their deal.

They have two Ravens, now, and Andrew still isn’t quite sure what Kevin thinks of Nathaniel. He’ll pry it out of him sooner or later though.

Not being involved in the process doesn’t mean Andrew doesn’t feel it when the newest link of their chain is forged in place. To the untrained eye Nathaniel looks like he has a lake inside of him, a simple wellspring of magic, but Andrew isn’t surprised that he feels like the unmasterable stretch of an ocean just barely held within bone and skin. Nathaniel’s control is as poor as Kevin pointed out. It takes even Andrew a moment to readjust, and he wonders exactly how much the others are staggering over it.

They’ll either be regretting their choices to back Andrew’s decision right now, or pleased. It’s one thing to take in a Raven - it’s another to own one, especially with power like that.

Andrew has been swinging between musing and blankness for a while when he hears the door swing behind him. It’s Renee, pausing at a respectful distance before he beckons her closer with a wave of his hand.

Renee is quieter than the others. It’s owed less to her magic and more to the implacability of her control - Nathaniel could learn something from her.

She is tolerable. Less so when she seeks him out on purpose, but he probably owes her the benefit of the doubt at this point.

She sits down beside him, knees to her jaw and her arms wrapped around them. She smiles and with a shake of her head politely declines when he taps his fingers against the cigarette pack at his side. She waits for a little while in steady silence before breaking it to say, “Why him?”

“Why not?” Andrew replies. “He came to you, remember?”

“So you’re saying it was because it was the easy decision,” Renee surmises. “I think you might find that he is nothing of the sort.”

Andrew has probably never picked the easy path in his life. “He’s a bomb.”

“Powerful,” Renee says. It sounds like agreement. “I don’t know if you have it in you to aim him though.”

“Not my job. We have Kevin for that. Dan, too.”

She hums. “You think it’s going to come down to a fight.”

“I know it is. So do you,” he corrects. “I knew that before Kevin even considered leaving Evermore. It’s inevitable.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Renee believes in better natures, but she hasn’t really met a Raven yet. Andrew suspects she’ll class them with the sort her old nature hunted out.

“If you want to make a bet on it,” Andrew offers, open-ended.

“You know I try not to bet against you,” she replies. “Is Nathaniel mine, or yours?”

The easiest thing would be to hand the responsibility over to her. It’s not as though she isn’t competent. If he were a different kind of man, he would do it in a heartbeat.

He isn’t a different man. That’s why it makes perfect sense for him to say, “I wouldn’t wish him on you as anything but a corpse.”

“Because he’s powerful?”

“Because I don’t trust why he came here.”

“You think he has a real reason for coming to us, besides fear,” Renee surmises. She looks unsurprised - Andrew wonders if she’s considered the same.

“I think the chances of a rogue Raven showing here by chance six months after one of their baby coven’s strongest mages joined ours is very slim,” Andrew says. “A Wesninski? An elemental? Wearing a collar, but acting as though he thinks he could shake it off if he really needed to? You do the calculations.”

“Maths never was my strong point,” Renee muses. “Do you want my help?”

Andrew casts her a quick look, from her passive face to her relaxed hands. “What do you want in exchange?”

“Nothing,” Renee says.

“Then no,” Andrew replies. He doesn’t need her, and he doesn’t like to owe people anything.

“Alright,” she accepts easily. “I think it’ll be interesting, to see what happens.”

“Will you say the same if we end up fighting?”

Renee’s mouth creases in a half-smile. “You know the answer to that.”

 

* * *

 

Andrew half-expects that Wymack will send Nathaniel with Dan and Matt, but instead when he comes downstairs he’s instantly the centre of Wymack’s focus.

“Nathaniel is going to stay with you for now,” he says. His tone leaves little room for argument, but that has never stopped anyone in their coven.

Andrew raises an eyebrow. “And if I don’t want him there?”

“You should have thought of that earlier,” Wymach replies. “Don’t kill him.”

“No promises,” Andrew replies. “Where’s Kevin?”

“In the lounge. Don’t let the two of them kill each other, either.”

Andrew gives him a flat look and leaves. The lounge in the Tower is down a level from the living areas that make up the uppermost floors, though currently no one lives there besides Wymack. Andrew, Aaron and Nicky had done so for a while after initially joining the coven, but having their own space had become a priority once their control had improved.

Matt and Dan have evidently already left, as have Renee and Allison, though they’ll presumably want to get their hands on the newbie later. That just leaves Andrew’s collection of misfits in the lounge, scattered across various pieces of furniture. Nathaniel, perched on the edge of an armchair, looks like he might bolt at any second.

Kevin is pacing on the far side of the room, hands behind his back like some kind of military figure. He’s anxious, Andrew can read it from the set of his shoulders, but he’s thoughtful too. He flicks Andrew a glance and then turns to Nathaniel.

“Your control is appalling,” Kevin tells him, looking like Nathaniel should be pleased to have his expertise on this matter, or somehow surprised by this - like it isn’t overwhelmingly obvious. Or like he didn’t say as much within a half hour of meeting Nathaniel.

Unsurprisingly, Nathaniel looks unimpressed. “And?”

“You’re going to improve it,” Kevin replies. “And I’m going to help you.”

Nicky makes a choking noise which is most likely an aborted laugh. His voice is stifled when he says, “Uh, maybe Dan would be-”

“Dan is not an elemental,” Kevin says.

Nicky loses his ability to be tactful with that - not because he’s offended, but because Kevin seems offended by the very suggestion that Dan might be a better teacher than Kevin, and Nicky finds the concept hilarious. “I’m pretty sure even Aaron would be a better mentor than you. Sorry, Kevin.”

“Don’t drag me into this,” Aaron says, standing. “We’re done here. Let’s go.”

He turns and leaves the room, regardless of the fact that Andrew has the car keys. Andrew feels the prickling awareness of him going down the stairs to the ground floor and ignores it and its indication of Aaron’s wretched mood. If Andrew is emotionless, then Aaron is anger, at odds with the water-and-earth of his magic.

Kevin stands, too, but he doesn’t look away from Nathaniel. “We’ll start tomorrow.”

Nathaniel says, “Fine,” and for all his tone is resentful there is something in his face that catches Andrew’s attention. It isn’t submission - it looks more like yearning. Or perhaps relief.

Nathaniel has secrets. Seeing that look is the moment that Andrew knows he needs to know them.

 

* * *

 

They give Nathaniel the tiny room with a single bed between Nicky and Aaron’s, and leave him to ‘unpack’. Nicky’s words, because Nicky is the only one tactful enough to not bring up that Nathaniel can’t have much to unpack from the lone duffel bag he appeared with.

Aaron goes up to the greenhouse as soon as they return. Nicky is the only one who seems actively pleased about their guest - if they can call him that, now that he’s a Fox - fussing over him as he settles in. Andrew can hear their conversation clearly from the lounge, Nicky’s brash voice and Nathaniel’s flatter one.

“So Kevin’s fire and air, and Andrew is an earth mage,” Nathaniel is saying. “What is Aaron?”

“He’s a healer,” Nicky says, a neat evasion. “You should see his green house. It’s up on the roof - I still don’t know Andrew got permission to use the space - and it’s amazing. He grows these bonsai trees, gorgeous ones. I’m totally not a nature person, but even I think they’re pretty.”

“He’s a green mage too,” Nathaniel says, seemingly to himself. “Are you as well?”

“Oh - no, definitely not,” Nicky replies. “My speciality is my charm. Can’t you tell?”

Andrew can nearly hear Nathaniel’s puzzlement from here. “Uh…”

Nicky laughs. “I mean I’m good at low magic. Getting my way, talking to people, sex - the fun stuff, you know?”

“I’ve never heard of anyone specialising in that,” Nathaniel says.

“It’s fine. You’ll see at some point. I have a no-seduction-magic-in-the-house rule, but I can always show you later.”

At that moment, the two of them reappear in the living room. Nathaniel looks straight to Kevin where he’s on the couch on his phone, and then looks away again. His eyes catch on Andrew instead.

Nicky looks too, and immediately shuts up.

“Who put up the wards here?” Nathaniel asks. Andrew has felt him prodding at them from the inside a few times, gently testing.

“All of us,” Andrew replies.

“Do you mind if I add another layer?” The fact that he asks Andrew directly means he doesn’t believe Andrew. “I can anchor it to the same ward stones. That way it’ll be disabled with the others.”

“If you don’t mind me watching you do it,” Andrew says.

Nathaniel shrugs. “That’s fine. Shall I start?”

Andrew pushes himself up and walks past them both, an unspoken cue to follow. Nicky stays, but Nathaniel follows. Andrew leads him down the hall and into the kitchen, swinging the pantry door open. On the floor at the back is the northern ward stone, quiescent but gleaming silver.

Nathaniel leans down to get a closer look, tracing his fingers in the air over the surface of the stone. “I can feel Kevin’s magic in here. Water, too. Which of you deals in water?”

“We’re green mages,” Andrew replies, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms. “I don’t know if you realise this, but plants need water to live.”

Unexpectedly, Nathaniel snorts. “No need to get so sensitive about it.”

He stops Andrew from replying by beginning to cast. Air and water gives way to something a little odd, like waves turning to quicksilver and then metal. The subtle alchemy makes the back of Andrew’s neck prickle.

Andrew’s wards are less straightforward than they seem, a wall with the real trap hidden behind it. Nathaniel’s make no effort to hide their teeth - the water spins straight to blades, beautiful and layered. This ward would reduce anyone who tried to break through it to a bloody mist.

Then, just as quickly as he started, Nathaniel finishes. The wards sink into the back of Andrew’s awareness with the others - waiting, patient.

“Interesting,” Andrew says. “Who taught a weather mage that kind of trick?”

“You know where I come from,” Nathaniel replies as he stands. “I held a knife before I cast spells. Weather mage or not, blades are in my blood.”

“All this talk of blood reminds me what you are,” Andrew says. Nathaniel is close to him, deep within arm’s reach and cornered. Andrew sees his eyes flicker in recognition of that. “As a choice, I wouldn’t recommend it. I’ve got no fondness for your kind.”

Andrew didn’t shackle himself, after all.

Nathaniel gives him a careful look. “You like Kevin.”

“I can’t stand Kevin,” Andrew corrects. “But he’s useful.”

He steps back and turns away. He knows Nathaniel hears his implication: _you should be useful too_.

 

* * *

 

Wymack, probably realising that leaving Nathaniel alone with the four of them is not the best idea he’s ever had, calls them back for a circle the following day.

Unlike some of the bigger covens, they don’t carry out rituals daily or even weekly. Kevin and Dan run ‘training’ for all of them under Wymack’s watchful eye, but the full circles are usually saved for solstices or the old celebrations, the days or nights where they pour their magic into the earth and have it returned to them three-fold.

“We want to see how things work with another person involved,” Wymack explains when they’re all collected in what he calls the workroom, gesturing between Dan and himself. He means with another bound witch involved, of course, but he’s too nice to say as much.

For all he’s technically the leader of their Coven, Wymack hands much of the work and the responsibility over to Dan. His role is more centred around providing experience, as well as scouting new people to add to the circle.

Fox Coven has a reputation. Wymack started it to make a place for the witches who didn’t have anywhere else to go, and no one else to lean on. Allison is an old blood who turned from her bloodline-obsessed family and was consequently struck from the dynasty. Matt, another old blood, got hooked on human drugs and fae magic until his mother dragged him back out to sobriety and the real world. Renee is Renee.

Then there’s the rest of them. Sob stories to a man or woman, powerful but lacking in control and discipline, misfits amongst a blood-dominated hierarchy but making their place on strength alone. Andrew hates the entire idea of it, but it’s better than the alternative.

The Raven Coven came to try and recruit him for the Crows when he was sixteen years old, freshly bound by the Council and tweaked out on the draining of his own magic. He hadn’t been tethered yet and the Council were pushing at him to pick his new master, and he’d turned down Kevin Day and Riko Moriyama out of spite. Their nattering about magic and power meant nothing to him. He just wanted to be left alone. He’d been prepared to kill for the opportunity, too.

The thing is, bound witches are essentially at the mercy of their coven in terms of what is taken from them. But no binding is one-way - with the Foxes, Andrew’s magic becomes the Coven’s magic, but the Coven’s magic could be pulled back into him, too. No one has survived the attempt - no one at all, bound or binder.

When Andrew threatened to try it for himself, the twin Crows with their numbered faces had believed him and backed off. That was the only wise decision Kevin has ever made, besides perhaps his eventual flight from the Crow Coven.

And Andrew had agreed to join the Foxes in the end, for reasons the rest of the coven can only guess at. He thinks Wymack knows why. He suspects Nathaniel could give it a good guess, too.

Sometimes having a choice with two bad options is the best chance you’ll ever get.

“Andrew, sit at the Northern point,” Dan says, waving him across the room. “Nathaniel, you’ll sit at the South.”

Circles are as much about even distribution as they are about intention. Kevin takes the Eastern point, Aaron the Western, curling themselves cross-legged inside the marked out circle on the floor. It’s been drawn fresh on the floorboards for tonight, white chalk laid out on the dark wood.

The other Foxes array themselves around and between - Renee sits directly beside Andrew, and Allison takes his other side. Nicky slots between Aaron and Nathaniel, with Matt beside him and Dan on Kevin’s other side.

Wymack is the last one to sit, muttering quietly about his back as he does so. He sits across from Matt, between Kevin and Renee.

Just like that, the circle snaps into alignment. This is the part that isn’t intent. This is the part which is about belonging.

Andrew sees the sensation register on Nathaniel’s face. He wonders if their runaway has ever felt something like this - by his expression, Andrew doubts it.

As their North point, Andrew is the one to start the ritual. It’s a simple open-and-close spell, welcoming and familiarising, mostly useless. Kevin would probably chant, but Andrew has never particularly cared for verbal magic. He sketches a glimmering sigil on the floor in front of him instead, watching it light up with a taste of his magic.

The light moves, seemingly of its own accord, flowing across the floor and creating a glowing connection between north and south as Nathaniel mimics Andrew. The sigil he uses is unfamiliar until Andrew feels it come to life - it’s a kind of binding, the magic version of the word _togetherness_. Not quite a match for Andrew’s _open_ sigil, but it seems to work anyway.

They take turns, drawing lines of light back and forth across the floor until the spell comes back to Andrew. It sets the air to humming, the outpouring and sharing of magic merging into a slow-moving storm front around them.

It’s not pulling on Andrew. This is a spell that requires an equal give from each member, not the magic being pried purposefully from Andrew’s bones - not that the Foxes are the sort - so he lets it build a little, feeding it until the air starts to spark and shake.

The addition of Nathaniel is the spark - he’s electric to the core, cloud-to-ground lightning crawling in his vicinity in miniature. The shake is all Andrew, and with them face to face Andrew can push a little.

Nathaniel feels it. At some point in the ritual his eyes have slid shut, but they open and focus directly on Andrew with the outpouring that Andrew gives over. The answer Nathaniel gives is a better gauge of him than Andrew has gotten before now - less lightning than it is a wall of wind, or waves stirred to ship-eaters by a gale. Andrew feels towards the depths of Nathaniel’s power, showing a little of himself in the process.

It’s a threat. If Nathaniel didn’t know who and what he was dealing with before this, he does now.

Just like that, Andrew breaks his sigil, pulling his magic back into him where it’s rebounding between Foxes faster and faster. Like always, it’s harder to put it back to sleep than it is to wake it, and Andrew’s version of a lullaby is pure force by necessity. He shoves it all back down.

Nathaniel’s control is bad enough that only half his own magic comes back to him. The rest strikes the floor as lightning, leaving Lichtenburg figures seared into the wood in a halo around him.

That sends reverberations through the circle. Kevin’s control is impeccable so he manages not to set the Tower on fire, but Aaron is suddenly encircled in green new shoots sprouting from the dead wood of the floorboards. Allison’s face twists, distorting like a bowing mirror, and Matt makes the Tower wards quiver for a long moment. Nicky sends a bolt of surprise through the centre of all of them, there and then gone. Dan exhales white hot metal like blood, Wymack mirrors her - and then Renee takes the snowballing magic and swallows it to nothing, forcing it through her body and into the earth.

It makes them all stagger, but the circle breaks. Half of them drop to the floor to ground themselves, pressing spines and bellies and palms down. Andrew doesn’t bother, but his mouth tastes like lightning. He looks to Nathaniel and catches his twisted, pursing mouth.

“Ow,” Nicky says, clutching his chest. “I hate to say this, new kid, but Kevin is right. Your control is shit.”

“I’ve never done anything like that,” Nathaniel replies. His eyes have gone opaque. “I wasn’t expecting it.”

He doesn’t apologise, but predictably they soften anyway. All of them besides Kevin and Aaron, anyway.

“You’ve never done a circle before?” Dan asks, voice gentling. “It’s okay, I remember how overwhelming it can be.”

Matt, meanwhile, is tracing the marks Nathaniel has left on the floorboards. “Hey, this looks kind of neat.”

“You could have killed all of us,” Kevin blusters. He looks like he’s gearing up towards one of his rants, and several of the Foxes roll their eyes at the sound of his tone alone.

“I like to think we’re slightly better than being wiped out by one witch with hairy control,” Wymack cuts him off before he can really start. “This is why we’re doing this today, remember? Practice.”

Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t suggest they try the circle over again. Kevin’s restraint may not hold out a second time around. It’s more likely that Wymack is considering Andrew’s control, of course, but that’s beside the point.

Magic like Andrew’s doesn’t just go away when it’s inconvenient, especially after a stirring circle like that. He’s grinning even though nothing about this is funny, his chest bubbling bright with laughter and his brain reduced to flashing coloured lights. Hypomania has never looked pretty on him, but he’s never sure whether he can call it that when it’s ably assisted by magic.

For him, it’s a not a question of his control. It’s a question whether the rest of him - his body, and his mind - will hold out in the process of keeping it.

“Let’s do some meditation,” Wymack says instead, and ignores the Foxes when they groan and mutter.

Andrew stands up, brushing chalk off of his hands. Wymack looks at him, eyebrow raised.

“Where the hell are you going?” he demands.

“Sorry,” Andrew says, and smiles. “No sitting still for me today.”

The smile doesn’t wear well. It feels taut. Wymack watches him for another moment and then nods, dismissing Andrew.

“No fair!” Nicky says from behind Andrew as he leaves. Andrew doesn’t stay long enough to hear the inevitable end of that conversation. He traces a finger over the alien shape of his mouth and goes up to the roof.

When they’d met, Kevin and Riko hadn’t stopped talking about how magic was something incredible, something liberating, something of value. Andrew hadn’t been able to relate back then, and he can’t much more now.

He’s awake inside when he doesn’t really want to be. He can’t quite drown it out with nicotine and looking over the edge of a building, but it does help.

This time, when footsteps sound on the roof behind him, it’s not Renee who has come looking for him.

“What are you?” Nathaniel asks. His voice is quiet but pointed.

“If you can’t figure that out, I don’t know what any of the busybodies can do for you,” Andrew replies.

“You aren’t the same as them,” Nathaniel tries again.

“No. We already established this, remember?” Andrew says. “I’m like you.”

He turns to look at Nathaniel, folding a leg up so he can rest his chin on his knee. Nathaniel is frowning, fraught. He wants to argue the point, but he doesn’t have the ammunition for it.

“Oh, Nathaniel, don’t make that face,” Andrew says. “You’ll figure it out. Probably. And if you do, you might prove interesting after all.”

That earns him a glare. “I’m not a toy for you to play with.”

“Aren’t you? You could have fooled me,” Andrew replies.

“Is that why you want me here?”

“I told you why. Because you can be useful. Did you forget that already?”

“I don’t believe you.” Nathaniel’s voice has gone combative, on the edge of becoming aggressive.

He really is stupid after all. Andrew says, “That’s your problem, not mine.”

He turns back to the drop, dismissive. After a moment Nathaniel realises he isn’t going to get a response, huffs out an impatient breath, and leaves.

Andrew smokes another cigarette before he follows. Nicky and Aaron will be too irritating about being kept waiting if he doesn’t.

He throws the keys at Nicky when they get to the car, ignoring the squawk that earns him, and then climbs into the back behind Kevin’s seat. His concentration is too shit to drive right now, and it’s a little entertaining to feel how stiffly Nathaniel sits, stuck between him and Aaron.

Back at the apartment, Andrew follows Kevin down the hall to his bedroom. Kevin seems too distracted to even notice Andrew at his heels, but he leaves the door open in invitation. Andrew doesn’t stray much past the doorway, though he closes the door behind him. Kevin has gone straight to his desk to shuffle around the pile of tomes he keeps there, leather-bound and smelling faintly of vanilla.

“Hey, Kevin,” Andrew says. “Stay away from the new kid.”

Kevin pauses and looks to him, almost a double-take. “ _What?_ Andrew, he needs to train-”

“Don’t make me repeat myself, Day,” Andrew recommends. It, as ever, shuts Kevin up fast. He looks mutinous, but he hasn’t learned how to fight back - yet.

“What are you going to do?” Kevin demands, half-aggressive, mostly just a more boring version of irate.

“What do you think?” Andrew asks him. It’s a rhetorical question.

“You can’t break him,” Kevin says. “We need him.”

Andrew shrugs. “You better hope he plays along, then.”

 

* * *

 

It’s really not difficult to break into a room in Andrew’s own home. The doors all lock - that was part of the appeal of this place to start with - but it’s very, very difficult to keep Andrew out. Locking the doors is more of an invitation that anything else. Not that Andrew needs one.

The complicating factor is the whispering wards lining the inside of the room itself, with their triggers at the door and the one window on the far wall. Andrew ends up standing with his palm against the door for a long moment, evaluating them. He hadn’t realised Nathaniel had done this, and he should have felt it in his home. It’s half amusing and half irritating.

The thing is, Andrew watched Nathaniel work in the kitchen when he added his ward to the whole apartment. This one feels the same, knives of magic aimed at every soft spot on the person stupid enough to be caught in them, sharper than any human-fashioned metal could be. Andrew might survive walking into one by accident, but he thinks he would need to sacrifice a few of his less important organs in the process.

Walking into it on purpose is another prospect entirely. Andrew isn’t that fond of his left kidney, but it’s not worth losing it to get one over on Nathaniel. Tackling these wards requires a little old fashioned lateral thinking.

It’s not his strong point, because he’s the direct sort. That doesn’t mean he won’t do it if he has to.

The wards are more than just the blades, of course. The delicate webbing that holds them together is magic familiar to Andrew, even though he isn’t the wards expert that Matt might be, and it requires a combination of care and brute force to create a tiny backdoor through the ward in the ward stone hidden inside the bedroom, giving him just enough space to slip through the door and inside of the wards without being internally cut to ribbons.

He only manages it because he’s seen Nathaniel cast. The thought makes his mouth twist up as he starts to search the room.

Nathaniel’s kit is on the table by the bed. Andrew isn’t stupid enough to touch it, but he passes a hand close enough to it to get an impression of the contents. It feels like Nathaniel, lightning and the edge of a cold wind. It also feels like dry herbs and a collection of stones, carved wood and fashioned steel. All of those things reverberate back to Andrew’s magic, nothing there to surprise him. They’re just the tools of a witch - bowls and semi-precious stones and an athame.

There’s an old wooden dresser that doesn’t match the bedhead or the bedside table. Only one of the drawers is full with Nathaniel’s bland and unfashionably distressed clothes, folded stupidly neatly. Andrew removes them and lays them flat on top of the dresser one piece at a time, checking between the layers.

Towards the bottom he hits the jackpot. There’s a plastic binder tucked between two shirts. Andrew slides it out and opens it on the top of the clothes.

It’s a trove of reasons why Andrew’s suspicions are valid. There are pages and pages of handwritten notes, all of them concerning the movements of the Raven and Crow Covens. There is also a special focus on one Kevin Day, in conjunction with Riko Moriyama.

Further back, there are a series of slips of paper covered in encoded writing. Andrew knows they’re spells - probably the blade-ward is one of them. There’s also money - a lot of it. Andrew, who has been poor his entire life, has never seen even a fraction of that much.

There’s also a thin bound book in one of the pockets that catches Andrew’s eye. He recognises the sigil on the front cover because he’s read the book before. It’s a spellbook, of a sort; one that is dedicated entirely to binding spells.

It’s no question why Nathaniel has it. It’s the same reason Andrew has read it.

Carefully, he closes the binder and puts it away. He finishes searching the drawer and finds nothing else, so stacks the clothes again as they were and then slides it closed. He goes over the rest of the room with his eyes and a delicate finger of magic - if there are traps, he doesn’t want to be bitten - and finds nothing else of interest.

When he leaves, he detangles his magic from the wards, closing the door he made from himself. Tapping a finger once against the closed door, he leaves.

 

* * *

 

Truthfully, Andrew isn’t that surprised when Nathaniel storms into the living room that evening and looks straight to Andrew, face black. “Stay out of my things.”

Andrew grins. “Excuse me?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Nathaniel snarls back.

“Oh, do I? Your things, your things...do you mean your complete collection of second-hand clothes, or something else?”

He isn’t deterred. “I know it was you.” The wards, probably. Either Nathaniel sensed they’d been disturbed or he’d noticed the fingers of Andrew’s magic wound into them now.

“It could have been any of us. Why pick on me?” Andrew asks.

“That’s not a denial.”

Andrew’s grin widens.

“Stay out of my things,” Nathaniel repeats. “Or I’ll make you sorry.”

“Oh, will you? And how might you do that?” It’s hilarious to imagine.

“Try it and find out.” It’s like being threatened by a kitten, really. The intention is there, but Andrew doubts there’s any follow-through. Power doesn’t mean much in their world, and it means less to someone like Andrew with a surplus of his own.

“I’ll do you a deal, Wesninski,” Andrew says, just to see Nathaniel hide his reaction to his own name. “You come out with us for a night, and I’ll never lay a finger on anything belonging to you again. Sound fair?”

“Come out with you where?”

“There’s a little bar in the city centre. We’ll have a few drinks, talk a little, and settle everything up front. It’ll be fun.” For Andrew, maybe.

“I don’t drink.”

“You don’t talk much, either. Don’t let that stop you, though.”

“How do I know you’ll keep up your end of the deal?” Nathaniel demands.

“You don’t,” Andrew replies, ignoring the itch of the implication. “But I will.”

 

* * *

 

The queue for Eden’s Twilight is long and gleaming with glamours, but Andrew doesn’t need to worry about that. He walks straight in, the bouncers eager to greet them - or Aaron and Nicky, at least.

Inside, it’s the usual blur of magic and body heat and music loud enough to stir the dead. Andrew lets it swallow him whole. When he exhales, he feels eyes move to him, because here is one of the few places where he can let a little bit of himself out without losing it.

Aaron, Nicky and Kevin find them a table. Andrew drags Nathaniel towards the bar, catching Roland’s eye as he does so and noting Nathaniel taking in the bartender at the same time.

Roland is slight of build, and notably other under the lights that gleam off his skin. It’s so copper-burnished it looks metallic, and his hair is the same colour. His eyes are large and deep violet blue. He’s Nathaniel Wesninski with the saturation turned all the way up. It’s amusing, really: all the old-blood talk about purity, and looking between the two of them it’s so clear just where the power they preach about comes from.

No one knows exactly where the magic in witches originated. Some say humans married angels - some say their women lay with demons. Some say they mated with the Fair Folk, but it’s considered much less fashionable to claim the magic from under the hill.

Roland is fae all the way through, and of the lesser kind for all he looks almost human. High Fae are powerful and haughty and rarely deign to grace the real world with their presence, content to stay in their Courts and indulge in their own pleasures. The lesser fae move back and forth freely, sticking largely to the outskirts of the human world.

Nathaniel is staring at him with a steady expression but puzzled eyes. Andrew says, “What, is this your first time?”

Nathaniel and Roland both look to him, and then back to each other. Roland smiles - his teeth are cat-sharp in his mouth. “Oh, a newbie? It’s been a while since you brought one here.”

“I’ve met fae before,” Nathaniel corrects. “I just didn’t figure Andrew for the sort.”

There are all kinds of dirty stories amongst the old bloods about witches who consort with the fae. Roland snorts at the implication.

“I’m not that kind of girl,” he tells Nathaniel. “What’re you drinking?”

“Soda,” Nathaniel returns. “Please.”

“Pft. Soda,” Roland turns away to pour it and then passes it across to Nathaniel. “Go to the table. No point taking up space at my bar drinking something that isn’t booze.”

Nathaniel goes. Andrew doesn’t bother watching him, though he does say, “Remind them not to put their hands on any of mine.”

 _They_ are Roland’s less charming brethren, the ones who hang back in dark corners and the heated, churning spots on the dancefloor where the drunkest go, waiting to steal a kiss and a name and a lock of hair if they can. More than that, if they’re able. The chances of them touching a witch are fairly low, and witches of their kind particularly so, but Andrew hasn’t got this far by taking chances.

“They know,” Roland returns. “They’re afraid of you, remember?”

Andrew reduced a few of them to smears of burnt blood a few years back, when they were lowly and lone witches, barely in control and with no idea what they were really getting into coming here. Say what you like about the wild fae who inhabit Eden’s Twilight, but they aren’t slow learners.

“Remind them,” Andrew reiterates.

“If you’re that worried, I’d go to the table before the cute redhead gets himself into trouble,” Roland recommends. “They’ll eat him up, if they get half a chance.”

“They would be biting off more than they can chew,” Andrew replies. “What did you use?”

“White rowan,” Roland replies. “He’ll be puking half the day tomorrow.”

White rowan is toxic to their ilk. “As long as he’s sensible tonight, I don’t care.”

Roland shrugs. “Sensible enough. Take what you can get, green witch. Hey, does the no-touching rule extend to you as well?”

“You know it does.” Roland knows that very well. He’s not the fastest learner, but slow ones don’t live long around Andrew Minyard.

“Hm. And if I promise to keep my hands to myself?”

“You can’t have any of my hair,” Andrew drones.

Roland smiles, all teeth. “Oh, it’s not your hair I want.”

He pushes the tray across the bar towards Andrew. When Andrew leans in to pick it up he’s still close enough that his breath brushes Andrew’s throat.

Roland murmurs, “Later?”

The finger Andrew uses in the hollow of his collarbone to push him half back is a clear enough answer between the two of them.

He picks up the tray and takes it back across the bar to the table. The crowd clears out of his way without him needing to throw his weight around, and that, as ever, is Andrew’s legacy - fear, not entirely misplaced.

 

* * *

 

The rowan works a treat.

Nathaniel goes to stand like he plans to run - and where exactly he would go is a mystery, unless he plans to run all the way to the other Foxes - and Andrew restrains him, hand in his hair and jerking his head back brutally. He slams him back into the seat.

“Ah, ah,” he says, all teeth, all warning. “Careful. Wouldn’t want you to fall.”

The magic in Nathaniel’s veins is dead or dying. His body is loose with it, his brain fuzzing – Andrew knows the feeling, having taken it before. It’s not just toxic, it’s a suppressant. Nathaniel is a dimming star in their circle, pulsing out with every beat of his heart.

“It’s not permanent, don’t worry,” Andrew goes on, half holding Nathaniel down and half holding him up through the weakness. “White rowan. Ever had it before?”

“Fuck you,” Nathaniel snarls back.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Andrew says. “Or maybe I should take it as a yes. Either way, I’m sure you know the effects. Just relax. A little longer and you won’t even care that you’re nearly human now.”

“Why would you do this?” he demands, voice slurring.

“Because I don’t trust you,” Andrew tells him simply. “Just like you don’t trust me.”

He pushes Nathaniel back into Aaron’s grip, and says, “Kill some time. I’ll join you shortly.”

Aaron doesn’t pause in doing so, practically dragging Nathaniel behind him. This isn’t the kind of club where people will stop things like that, or at least not when those things are being carried out by Andrew or any of his.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Andrew warns Kevin, who is utterly wasted. It’s not unusual except that tonight he’s apparently feeling guilty about their game. Andrew doesn’t have any interest in guilt in general or Kevin’s in particular, so he leaves before Kevin can respond if he was even planning on doing so.

The crowd is a crush that leans away from Andrew. Nicky is waiting at the stairs leading down to the main dancefloor, swaying along with the music and laughing at something whispered in his ear by someone with skin purple-black as berry and limbs a little too long. His expression turns an attempt at serious when he notices Andrew has drawn up alongside him.

“Don’t let him leave,” Andrew warns.

“I won’t,” Nicky replies. From the corner of his eye Andrew can see the thin skeins of magic Nicky is gathering to himself from the people around him. It’s hard for Nicky to draw magic from the emotions of a group as small as the Foxes, but here it’s easy for him. He’s glowing with it, white hot with excitement and desire and adrenaline and lust that he pours back out threefold.

Andrew leaves him there, pushing into the crowd. It’s not hard to track Nathaniel’s stumbling form even without the beacon of his now-familiar magic. Andrew bypasses Aaron without a word and catches up with Nathaniel on the far side of the floor, shoving him forwards into clear space. He hits the wall and spins, nearly losing his balance in the process. Most witches are unprepared to fight without their magic, and he’s no different.

The effects of the rowan are clear. Nathaniel’s skin is waxy and his pupils are blown. It’s not a high, not in the human sense, but the weightlessness of having his magic drained away and inaccessible means he’s stumbling like he can’t track the world around him.

“What the hell do you want from me?” he demands

“That’s a stupid question,” Andrew replies. “I already told you I want the truth.”

“I’ve told you it,” Nathaniel says. “You can torture me as much as you like, but it won’t change anything.”

Andrew reaches out and feels for Nathaniel’s pulse, ignoring the flinch. It’s racing. He isn’t sure whether that’s an effect of the rowan, but somehow he doubts it.

“I can torture you as much as I want,” Andrew says, musingly, as though he’s ever tortured anyone in his life. “Thanks for the permission. I suppose if you’ve been running with Riko you’re probably used to it.”

“If I’ve been,” Nathaniel starts, blinking. “I haven’t seen Riko since I was ten years old. You can’t - you can’t think I’m working for him in secret.”

“Can’t I?” Andrew asks, bladed.

“You’re insane.” There’s disbelief in his voice. Andrew resists the urge to react to his choice of wording, laughter or otherwise.

“I’m naturally suspicious,” he corrects instead. “You’re here when you shouldn’t be, and there are a few gaps in your story that just don’t add up. The others might be willing to swallow crocodile tears in place of an explanation, but I’m not. You’ve got ten minutes to come up with a better answer.”

The second he takes his hand away from Nathaniel’s throat, Nathaniel lurches forward like he wants to attack Andrew. It’s simple to step aside, and Nathaniel careens into the crowd instead. They catch him, laughing and twirling him back into the dance - typical of the fae. Andrew watches for a moment, leaning back against the wall and checking his watch.

He doubts Nathaniel is going to be keeping time. Rather than waiting, Andrew pushes off the wall and through the crowd to the exit, bypassing Nicky and heading towards the bar.

He can probably spare Roland a few minutes.

 

* * *

 

Nicky nearly runs into him on the way back, screeching to a halt at the last moment. “Andrew - I’ve been looking for you everywhere, what the hell–”

“What,” Andrew says. Demands, perhaps.

Nicky swallows and pulls himself together at Andrew’s tone. “Nathaniel paid someone to knock him out.”

Interesting. “Someone has a secret to hide,” Andrew muses, and pushes past Nicky towards where he can feel the familiar pulse of Kevin’s magic.

Kevin is holding Nathaniel up, and Aaron is standing over them both with his arms crossed and his expression exceptionally unimpressed. The glare he turns on Andrew is murderous. There’s a third - conscious - person there too, saying, “Look, it was a hundred bucks. Do you know what I make an hour here? Not enough to say no.”

The busboy, then. Andrew doesn’t know him. He’s fae, his eyes unearthly green.

“Are you still here?” Andrew asks him, dismissive. They don’t need any more witnesses, and it’s not like he’s planning on involving the authorities when Nathaniel paid for this pleasure.

“Careful, witch,” the busboy says. When he bares his teeth they’re sharp like a cat’s.

“You’ve got that the wrong way around,” Andrew says. “You’re the one who needs to be careful.”

The busboy doesn’t make any more complaints after that. He scampers, no doubt taking his money with him.

“Andrew,” Kevin says. He’s pissed off too. Andrew doesn’t care to hear it.

“We’re leaving,” he says, cutting them all off. “Take him or leave him here, I don’t care.”

They bring him. It’s a shame - Andrew had half-hoped they’d leave him out of annoyance.

 

* * *

 

The next morning is mostly slamming doors, and Nathaniel throwing an empty glass at Aaron’s head. True to Roland’s word, he’s violently ill, but it hasn’t dulled his ability to create trouble. He’s just lucky he missed Aaron.

Eventually even Nicky abandons him to throw up in the bathroom in peace, after all his attempts at being helpful are rebuffed. Andrew ignores all of this, irritated that he didn’t get a real chance to get the answers he wants. He’s not sure he’ll be able to manufacture an opportunity like that again, especially now with any trust from Nathaniel reset to zero.

He’s just settled on the couch in the apartment when his phone goes off. These days they’re set up for technology - no scrying bowls necessary for long-distance communication - but incoming calls still send a teeth-gritting shudder through the wards before Andrew answers.

“Get your psycho ass over here or the entire lot of you are going to end up on the goddamn street in New Jersey,” Wymack says before Andrew can say anything, and abruptly hangs up.

He knows about last night, then. Andrew considers for a moment whether he’s being watched more closely than he thought, and then dismisses it because Wymack isn’t the sort. Instead, he feels for the wards.

Nathaniel’s magic has been slowly rebuilding as the effects of the rowan wear off. It still makes no sense that he’s somehow gotten out of the wards without Andrew even noticing. It’s a neat trick - Andrew’s going to have to get that one out of him, too.

He stops in at Kevin’s bedroom on the way out the door, leaning in the open doorway. “I’m going to pick Nathaniel up.”

Kevin is reading a thick book, and he doesn’t look up as he says, “From the bathroom?”

“From the Tower,” Andrew corrects, and then watches as Kevin does the same search he just did.

“How the fuck did he do that?” Kevin demands, jolting to his feet and reaching for the wards with his magic.

“You would have to ask him that,” Andrew replies, and leaves.

He’s not at all surprised to get to the Tower and feel the reverberations of Nathaniel in the wards. He is clearly resourceful enough to have survived this long, so it’s not surprising he made it across town.

Andrew takes the elevator up to the top floor where Wymack keeps his living quarters, stepping into the open living space. Wymack is waiting for him there, arms crossed and face set into a scowl.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” he demands through his teeth. It’s utterly unmoving.

“You know exactly what I was thinking,” Andrew replies, waving a bored hand. “I don’t trust him. I want to figure him out.”

“You brought him here in the first place, Andrew! Don’t pretend as though we forced him on you!”

“He came to us,” Andrew counters. “You think I’d let him wander around town untethered? You think he’d be better off in the Ravens’ hands, or with Crow Coven? I want him here under my eye, but I want to peel him apart until I know exactly why he came here, rather than running off the edge of the planet. You know why that is.”

“Kevin,” Wymack surmises, and then pinches the bridge of his nose. “God fucking damnit, Minyard.”

“Don’t act surprised by my intentions, David Wymack,” Andrew recommends. Of every Fox, Wymack is the one who reads him the best, the one who sees the truth for what it really is. It does them both a disservice to pretend otherwise.

“I’m not surprised, I’m pissed,” Wymack says. “Are you satisfied yet? Because you just let the kid traipse halfway across the city amongst humans and he looked like he might drop dead when he walked in here.”

“Rowan,” Andrew says. “He’ll be fine, and it isn’t like he can’t hold his own against humans.”

There’s the sound of a door closing further into the apartment, and then Nathaniel emerges in the doorway, pausing when he sees Andrew. He’s wearing an oversized shirt of Wymack’s that hangs off of him, and his hair is still almost wet enough to drip onto his grey face.

“Hello, Pinocchio,” Andrew greets him with a half-smile. “How was your walk?”

“Fuck you,” is the snapping response, bit through his teeth. “You wanted me here. Why did you do this?”

“I wanted you here because you’re just another controllable weapon in the Fox arsenal as long as you are bound to us,” Andrew replies, with a touch of cruelty, making his tone say without saying _we can use you_.

“Because of Kevin,” Nathaniel says. It’s a request for clarification.

“Because of Kevin,” Andrew agrees. “Because I don’t trust you with him, _Wesninski_.”

“You can’t think I came here for the Ravens. For Riko. You can’t be that insane.”

“Let me tell you what I think,” Andrew says, like velvet. “I think that you claim to have been wandering around unbound for nearly a decade, trying to sell me something that I know for a fact can’t be true. I think you gave yourself over too easily to us. Maybe you think you can convince Kevin to defect. Maybe you’re a timebomb waiting to destroy us from the inside out. And so far, you haven’t given me any reasons to think otherwise.”

“To think _otherwise_ ,” Nathaniel snaps, incredulous, before he gets a hold on himself. “You know who my father is.”

“He seems like a fine and upstanding character,” Andrew says, purely for the snarl he gets. Nathan Wesninski is no such thing - he’s in charge of Raven wetwork, and it’s been said he is just as fond of using a knife as his magic for getting the job done. It’s a rare thing, to find a witch willing to get their hands dirty.

“When my mother found out he meant to hand me over to his coven as a slave, she took me and ran,” Nathaniel says.

“Skip to the end. Everyone knows this part,” Andrew interrupts, flicking his fingers. He swears for a second he smells ozone.

“Andrew,” Wymack says, a warning. Andrew doesn’t look at him, and he doesn’t get a chance to go on anyway.

“She bound me to her,” Nathaniel says. There’s an odd light in his eyes, turning them more white than blue. “She knew that my father would never stop hunting us, but she wanted to make sure I wasn’t the target of every coven whose territory we stumbled into in the process of running. It didn’t save her anyway. I buried what was left her on the West Coast and ran until I ended up tangled in your fucking roses.”

“The Foxes are a funny choice for a last resort,” Andrew says. “So what was it you were looking for? Safety? Or revenge?”

Nathaniel smiles. It’s sharp. “Who says it wasn’t both?”

Andrew looks at him for a long moment. “I don’t think it’s either.”

“Like calls to like,” Nathaniel says. “And hey, you’re half right. I stayed because of Kevin.”

He waits for a response, but rushes on when Andrew doesn’t get one out in those two seconds. “He and I were meant to be the same. Riko’s, except for that I would wear a collar, and as a kid that didn’t seem so bad when it meant being a part of the most powerful rising coven on this coast. Now I know the difference. I know I was lucky. But Kevin has everything - power, control, this coven, you. I didn’t know he was here when I came, not really, but as soon as I saw him I realised I was too jealous to say no to your offer.”

“You expect me to believe you signed away your self-determination out of jealousy?”

“You said it yourself,” Nathaniel replies. “No one else was going to give me a choice. And I was tired of running. I was tired of being nothing but something to be owned.”

_I was tired of being nothing._

“Self-determination doesn’t mean a fucking thing to people like us,” Nathaniel continues quietly. “You know that as well as I do. I guess, when it came right down to it, I didn’t want to die if there was even a sliver of a chance I could get a shot at something better than slavery.”

That’s a little more relatable. Andrew says, “Fine.”

Nathaniel blinks. “Fine?”

“Keep this for as long as you can,” Andrew clarifies. “We both know it won’t last long.”

“Then at least I’ll go down fighting, if you have it your way,” Nathaniel says, having regained a tiny trace of his smirk.

Andrew doesn’t bother to respond to that, instead looking to Wymack. “We’re leaving.”

“He can stay here,” Wymack says. He looks suspicious still. “There’s plenty of room for him.”

“Nathaniel wants to come with me,” Andrew says.

“Neil,” Nathaniel corrects.

“ _Neil_ wants to come with me,” Andrew repeats, with a twist that definitely comes across as patronising.

Wymack turns to Neil. “You don’t have to do anything he says.”

“It’s fine,” Neil replies. “Thanks for putting me up here for a while.”

“That’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Wymack says. “Both of you. Here together. I’m hoping for all limbs fully attached, too.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Andrew tells him, and then leaves. Neil slides in at his back and follows.


	2. switch flipped, moon eclipsed

They don’t see much of Neil the next week - Andrew tracks his comings and goings through the wards, more by rote than out of any particular interest, and he knows from Renee that their newest member is spending time with the older Foxes.

This seems to cause Kevin some angst, because he’s desperate to get his hands on Neil and start working with him.

He comes upstairs and interrupts Andrew in the greenhouses, despite the fact that he hates it and despite the fact that the plants hate him, reeking of fire magic, anywhere near them. The clematis over the door shrinks back more out of distaste than because it recognises Kevin as being one of the few allowed past the door.

“Don’t go through there,” Andrew recommends, after Kevin has marched past without seeing him on his way into the next set of rooms. Andrew’s roses are less tolerant than the species in the front room, and Kevin won’t get past the wards to the hothouse which is Aaron’s workspace. “What do you want?”

Kevin pauses and blinks at him where he’s sitting cross-legged amongst a circle of bonsais, trimming one after the other with a pair of shears. He has to keep forcing them back into their shapes when they try to reach out to him.

“Uh,” Kevin says, and then gathers his irritation back around him. “Where is Neil?”

“Am I his keeper?” Andrew asks. As though Kevin isn’t enough work on his own.

“No, but you know where he is,” Kevin says. He’s gotten awfully demanding. Perhaps it’s desperation.

Andrew levels him with a long look. When it becomes clear to Kevin he isn’t going to answer, he huffs.

“You have wards and protection on every Fox house,” Kevin says. “ _And_ your spies.”

He means the sparse urban trees across the city, down to the grass on suburban verges and growing out of cracks in the pavement.

“You could find him too,” Andrew replies. Neil is a pulsing presence that is almost impossible to ignore, and Andrew isn’t that special. Anyone with a trace of awareness could find him if they worked hard enough.

“My control doesn’t work like that,” Kevin says, with a trace of frustration in his voice.

He’s not necessarily lying. He is a precision weapon by training, focused like a laser. Andrew, with his wide-spread magic, rooted in green growth, has a large range. Good for collateral damage, not much good for anything else.

The bonsais, with their spider-thin branches and miniature leaves, formed through hours of patience and concentration, might disagree.

“He’s exactly where you would expect him to be,” Andrew says. “Now go away.”

“That’s,” Kevin starts, and then sees that Andrew isn’t going to tolerate his presence any longer and leaves. He’ll probably figure it out by the time he’s inside.

Dan and Matt have adopted Neil - Andrew felt him go through their wards an hour or so ago. Kevin won’t venture out of the apartment alone anyway, but doubtless he’ll feel better to know where his missing chick is.

Kevin has a phone, too, even if he isn’t great at using it. He could have texted Neil.

That evening, a few minutes before their usual nightly trip to the tower, Kevin pauses in the doorway of Andrew’s bedroom and says, “I need you to take me to wherever he is before we go.”

It’s not a request, as per usual. Andrew doesn’t look up from his book. After a moment Kevin leaves again, though whether he’s decided that Andrew has agreed or disagreed with him is unclear.

It doesn’t matter. Andrew drives through the city to Dan and Matt’s apartment, pulling up in front of the complex. He stays in the car when Kevin leaves, leaning his head back on the headrest to wait. It’s ten minutes or so before Kevin reappears with Neil trailing behind him.

They’re irritated at each other, or at least Kevin is irritated with Neil - Neil seems his usual kind of introspective. He’s an electric pressure against Andrew’s senses after avoiding him these last few days.

Andrew restarts the car and turns around, towards the Tower. It’s quiet and dark when they arrive, parking next to Wymack’s car. Kevin doesn’t seem to notice that Abby’s car is there too, or at least doesn’t give a sign that he has. Andrew doesn’t have any money in that particular bet or technically any proof, but he knows that the others would take this as such.

Kevin leads Neil upstairs, Andrew trailing behind them both. The workroom is the same as always, besides the marks Neil scorched into the floor the other day. Neil looks at them with a twist to his mouth as Kevin finds some candles from the box in the corner.

Andrew leans in the corner with his back to the wall, observing as the two of them draw a circle together. As unfamiliar as Neil was with a full circle, it’s clear he’s familiar with working with only one other person. His actions are smooth and practised as he lays out half the candles. He takes his place while Kevin lights them, matchless and with only one finger. Elemental alignment aside, Andrew couldn’t do the equivalent spell without blowing up the candle entirely.

Kevin pauses on the circle boundary before sitting, casting a look at Andrew. He comes over, the candlelight at his back casting his face into shadow. It’s a big room, but coming closer only gives the illusion of privacy - on the other side, Neil is watching. Kevin says, “You should practice with us.”

That’s interesting. It’s been a long, long time since he’s bothered to make a suggestion which is, again, not a request.

“Go away, Kevin,” Andrew recommends. “Your protege is waiting for you, see?”

“You know that you need the same training. If you want to make full use of your power, if you ever want to be able to live without a collar, you need to–”

Andrew seals a hand over Kevin’s mouth before he can continue. “Careful, Kevin. You’re forgetting the part where I will never be alive without being shackled again.”

When he removes his fingers, Kevin is still looking at him. Because he’s a slow learner, he says, “Don’t you want to get stronger?”

“Don’t you think I’m already strong enough?” Andrew asks, smiling blade-sharp. “Scared your guard dog might not be a match for Riko after all?”

Kevin shakes his head furiously, but it’s not disagreement or agreement. It’s just frustration at Andrew’s usual stubborn self - according to Kevin, at least. He does turn away, giving it up as hopeless for another night.

Neil is watching them, gaze measured. Andrew ignores him.

They practice meditative breathing, no magic involved. It’s boring. Andrew ignores that too, sliding down to sit, drifting in the flicker of the candles and the lull of his own magic at night, while most plants sleep and the earth exhales.

 

* * *

 

Abby is, technically, an employee of the Witch Council, and not a Fox.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it complicates matters. While covens aren’t technically required to make their recruitments known to the Council, it’s considered polite, especially when it comes to bound witches. Dealing with slavery and human trafficking should probably require more stringent protocols, but they’re witches, and collared witches are apparently barely human, so there are no rules apart from mentioning it at dinner parties with coy smiles.

Except the Foxes aren’t invited to most dinner parties, and the Council finds out about Neil because Abby bumps into him bringing a message to Wymack and says, “Oh my God.”

She - unlike the rest of the Council like to pretend - knows exactly why someone of Neil’s kind might run. That’s probably why she looks horrified to recognise Neil.

“It’s alright,” Wymack says from behind her. “We knew you would meet him sooner or later. Neil, this is Abby. She’s a messenger for the Council, and a friend of mine.”

“Hello,” Neil says, uncertain but trying to mask it.

“Hi,” Abby replies, and then turns to Wymack. “So, is this the message I’m supposed to be carrying then?”

She sounds pissed. Wymack shrugs and says, “I figured it wouldn’t matter if you mentioned it to someone on your way through.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Abby says, and then grabs Wymack by the arm and drags him towards his office. She’s perhaps five-foot-two, and the foot of difference between their heights makes the process vaguely entertaining to watch.

“She’s going to tell the Council about me,” Neil says to himself. His face is expressionless.

“You can’t stay a secret forever,” Kevin says. “Not if you want to be someone in our world.”

“I don’t want to be someone,” Neil replies, leaning on the syllables of the word ‘someone’ like they taste bad in his mouth and he wants to spit them out.

“You can lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to me,” Kevin tells him, and then clicks his fingers in Neil’s face like the obnoxious asshole he is. “We have work to do, go.”

The work they’re doing involves throwing magic - in the form of spears of wind-controlled fire and pure lightning - at boards on the walls. It’s a little bit entertaining to watch, not least because of the threat of them actually burning the building down.

When Andrew gets up, he goes out into the lounge. Neither of them notice him leaving, but the people gathered outside all shut up when he arrives. It’s the older Foxes - Renee, Allison, Matt, Dan, and Wymack. Abby must have left already.

It’s no secret that they don’t really trust him. Even Renee, who understands him more than the others combined, considers him more of a wild card than he really is. Wymack is an exception to the rule.

“Don’t mind me,” Andrew says boredly, skirting past them.

“Wait, Andrew,” Dan says after a moment. “You should hear this too.”

“I don’t care,” Andrew tells her.

“You do,” she says. “It’s about Kevin.”

“It’s about Neil,” Andrew corrects her, but he pauses anyway, turning back to them.

“It’s about the banquet,” Renee explains. “We’re trying to decide whether it would be better for Kevin and Neil to stay behind, considering.”

“Considering?”

“The potential trauma for everyone involved,” Dan says drily.

“No, I was right,” Andrew says. “I still don’t care.”

He leaves, heading for the kitchen, ignoring the irate muttering in his wake. Either way, they’ll decide what they like, and either way Andrew will keep his promises.

 

* * *

 

The politics of being allowed to exist as a coven mean socialising.

The Witch Council isn’t as generous to all covens as it has been to the Foxes. They have a long history of wiping the inconvenient or dangerous ones off of the face of the earth with their combined might. Of course, the continued existence of the Foxes means fulfilling their rules, and that somehow has come to include twice-yearly dinners in the Sanctuary with other key players from around the country.

It has also been a fraught experience for the Foxes. However, this year they have two ex-Crows with them, one of which is meant to be missing-presumed-dead. It makes Andrew’s first banquet as a Fox look positively tame by comparison.

In the end, they decide there is no point in pretending as though their new addition is anyone other than who he really is. It’s not like they can disguise him, not without the glittering magic of his collar breaking even one of Allison’s glamours apart. Furthermore, it’s not like they all don’t already know by now - Abby will have done her work, and witches are gossips.

“Let’s at least try and make out like we aren’t parading him in front of them,” Wymack says wearily. “Kevin is already enough of a red flag to a bull.”

“Relax,” Dan says, waving a hand. “They can’t do anything in the Sanctuary.”

“They can’t do magic in the Sanctuary,” Renee corrects quietly.

“They can punch any of us as many times as they like,” Nicky finishes for her.

Matt wraps his arm around Nicky’s shoulders and jostles him companionably. “Don’t worry. old bloods don’t like to get their hands dirty. Waiting until midnight on the dark of the moon to assassinate someone with magic from their family spellbook is much more their style than brawling.”

“And all of you can keep your fists to yourselves too,” Wymack cuts in. “No matter what they do or say. Don’t give them the satisfaction of earning us a penalty, or for hitting you where it hurts.”

“Technically it would be _us_ hitting _them_ where it hurts,” Nicky muses out loud, and Matt claps a hand over his mouth before the irreverent comment can draw Wymack’s ire.

Face cloudy, Wymack orders them into their cars and leads them out. Andrew doesn’t need the directions, and the others don’t either - they go to the Sanctuary at least once a year, for meetings just like this one, where old bloods look down their noses at covens like the Foxes, and witches play at showing off their power.

Andrew thinks it’s boring. Underestimation is a power in its own right, so he has no intention of showing anything, and he and his are always the ones receiving the pursed-mouth looks doled out by purebloods.

They pull up outside an elegant ultra-modern hotel, parking alongside Mercedes and BMWs. They’re business cars, sleek and dark-coloured, and Andrew’s car looks sleekly muscular alongside them. Allison’s looks gaudy, but she grins carelessly as she climbs out. They’re all of a kind when it comes to viewing the Sanctuary and the people inside it. None of them have any reason to love the society they are nominally a part of.

A black-suited man is waiting outside the door to receive them. He says flatly, “This way, please.”

They enter through the lobby, but instead of moving towards the elevators, they’re led down an opulent hall and to a unobtrusive wooden door at the end. The suited man swings the door open and holds it for them, and beyond his arm the lights come on to illuminate the staircase that leads down below ground.

The Sanctuary isn’t in the hotel - it’s underneath it.

Wymack leads the way down the stairs, strong-backed in his poorly-fitted suit. Dan goes directly behind him, and then Kevin, and then Andrew. They have to go single-file because the staircase is narrow and winding back on itself as they descend. Then it abruptly opens out, admitting them into the rooms beyond.

The Sanctuary itself is massive, walls crawling with inset sigils that stick on the back of Andrew’s eyelids every time he blinks. They shed their own light, competing with the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Unlike the hotel above, the Sanctuary is old, hewn straight from the rock that the newer building rests on. This space was created a long, long time before the hotel, or the city itself. Before power, and probably before people.

Rumour has it that the fae lived here first. Andrew wouldn’t be surprised.

“Your seats are decked out in your colours,” their guide says from behind them. “Please, go ahead.”

It isn’t surprising to see the Fox Coven orange and white is at the same table as the Crow Coven’s red and black. Nor is it shocking that the Foxes have the Ravens in black and white at their backs. Andrew says, “Well, this might be fun after all.”

“Keep your fists to yourselves,” Wymack reminds them all in a mutter, leading the way across to their table.

As the oldest witch, the head of the table has been left clear for the Fox leader, so Wymack has to take that seat. Witch dining etiquette is archaic and strange, but even the Foxes, with all their denials of the old ways, aren’t in a place where they can ignore the rules. Unfortunately for Kevin, this puts him down the other end, where, unsurprisingly, Riko Moriyama has claimed the foot.

Andrew slides in on Kevin’s other side. He was expecting Neil to cower down the other end, but instead he sits on Andrew’s left. Andrew can’t help but notice that Nathan isn’t in residence at Kengo’s right hand behind them. Perhaps it’s making Neil braver.

“Hello, Kevin,” Riko says. He smiles brightly, his teeth on show. It looks genuine, if you don’t meet his eyes.

“Hello,” Kevin replies, quietly.

Across from him, Jean Moreau is sitting brutally upright in his own chair. Moreau has a three inked on his face, and a collar around his throat to match Neil’s, and eyes like glass. He’s as powerful as Kevin, if not more so. He’s apparently an air elemental, though you wouldn’t know to look at him. The only hint is a certain type of transparency to him, and Andrew suspects that has to do more with the collar than the source of his magic.

Power aside, his control isn’t anything like Kevin’s. His element might be air, but he feels like a cousin of the storm inside of Neil.

He smiles, too. “It’s been a while.”

“Hello, Jean,” Kevin says. He looks rigid to the core, like something has frozen inside of him.

“And here’s a familiar face,” Riko says. “I wouldn’t think you’d dare come here, Nathaniel. We heard whispers you were alive - showing your face, even - and then here you are.”

Neil smiles back. There’s a shade of his father in it. “Well, you don’t know me very well.”

“Perhaps not. But I do know your father. He couldn’t make it tonight, but he is so looking forward to catching up with you.” It’s a threat. Neil looks unmoved by it.

“Excuse my interruption,” a voice says from behind them. A hand lands on Kevin’s shoulder, squeezing a little out of sight of Riko. Dan goes on, “Riko, is it?”

“Yes,” Riko replies. It’s rather amusing to see him reduced by Dan’s implication that she doesn’t even recognise him on sight. That, Andrew suspects, was the goal.

“I’m Dan Wilds,” she says.

“A pleasure,” Riko replies, offering a hand. It’s limp and unappealing, offensive. Dan looks at it and smiles.

“All mine, I’m sure,” she says, and doesn’t take it. “These old blood ways mean that we can barely speak, with me at the other end of the table, so I thought I would come and meet you. Custom is such a bore, don’t you agree?”

It’s the politest insult Andrew has ever heard out of Dan’s mouth. Riko wears it like an affront before he manages to mask his offence behind chilly amusement.

“Perhaps if you weren’t raised to it,” he says. “I think there’s a beauty and complexity to it.”

“Complexity is right,” Dan says with a shrug. “Our coven is more about practicality.”

“That’s certainly one way of describing it,” Riko says. His tone is dismissive, but Dan doesn’t leave. “Perhaps things appear different to someone of your upbringing.”

“Riko,” Kevin says, like a warning, but Dan just laughs.

“You’re going to have to do better than that,” she tells him. “Oh, excuse me. I’ll speak more with you later, yes?”

She doesn’t give him a chance to reply before she turns away. Her words and the snap of her power are a threat. Old bloods are all about how their lineage gives them power, but the simple fact of the matter is that other witches are just as powerful, if not more so. Riko might talk big, but at the end of the day he’s just as likely to be killed by a half blood as he is by one of his own.

Riko turns back on Kevin, any show of civility wiped away. “You consort with half bloods and still expect me to take you seriously?”

“I’m not consorting with her,” Kevin says, with a vaguely distasteful expression.

“I don’t think he’s talking about Dan, Kevin,” Andrew says. “Are you, Riko?”

He’s been largely ignored in the exchanging of barbs, but this draws Riko’s total attention immediately. Riko smiles, sharp. “The green witch. It’s been a while.”

Andrew props his chin on his hand and stares back at Riko, unbothered. “Did you miss me?”

Riko doesn’t look away as he says, “Kevin, I find myself surprised that you find _this_ a suitable replacement.”

“What, for you?” Neil cuts in. The combination of glares he gets for that should strike him dead on the spot, but afterwards he’s still sitting there smirking.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Moreau says. He might mean _stupid_. He might also not be referring to Neil’s words at all, but instead the fact he’s here laying his head on the block.

“Ridiculous? The only thing that’s ridiculous is Riko acting like a jealous girlfriend,” Neil replies, heedless. “Face the facts. Kevin was never going to stay a Crow.”

When Riko answers, his voice is silk drifting over a knife. “And you think he’s better off as a Fox?”

“Everyone here knows you aren’t powerful enough for a circle of your own without your father or uncle,” Neil says. “Or without using other mages like anchor stones.”

He’s leaning back loosely in his seat, the tattoo on his neck mostly covered besides some spines sticking out over the top of his collared shirt. The casual angle of his jaw draws the eye to it, and to the rest of him - unconcerned, provocative. Wymack should have muzzled him. 

“Excuse me?” Riko says, voice icy.

“You heard me,” Neil says. “You can’t be a part of the Ravens with your brother in the way, so you’ve been forced off to hide under your uncle’s wing and pretend like you can lead your own coven. That’s why you are here, forcing us to listen to your bile, instead of playing the real game with the rest of your family. It’s a little pathetic. Did you really think someone with Kevin’s power would stay in your shadow forever?”

He leans forward, like he hasn’t already made his point. Maybe he just likes the feeling of hammering a nail into his own coffin. “But there’s only so much pity we’re willing to afford you. I, for one, am all out.”

There’s a long silence. Andrew isn’t sure whether Riko is out of words, or whether he’s just trying to choke down his own anger to get them out. Either way, his expression is a little amusing.

Less amusing is the heat waves that start to rise off of Riko’s shoulders. Moreau shifts his weight in his chair, clearly uncomfortable. Kevin does the same, his fingers clenching in the fabric of his slacks under the table.

Neil doesn’t move, just watches expectantly. There is nothing that Riko can do to him in the Sanctuary - unless he goes for him over the table, with his fists - but Neil’s expression is still a dare.

“Careful, Riko,” he says, almost simpering, definitely smug. “There are rules, remember?”

 

* * *

 

They all go back to the Tower together afterwards, a mirror of how they’d left. Andrew’s car is silent for the trip.

Wymack takes one look at them all gathered in the lounge and says, “Get some sleep. We’ll deal with this in the morning. And none of you better leave this building or so help me.”

He doesn’t finish the threat, but it isn’t as though he would follow through on one anyway. He watches them split up in little groups, but puts out an arm to stop Neil before he can leave.

“You know,” he says, fake-contemplative. “Considering everything, I would really have thought you would know better than to pick a fight with Riko.”

“I didn’t hit him,” Neil replies.

“Antagonising him is more probably more dangerous,” Wymack says. “Do you think he won’t want to get revenge for something like that?”

Neil shrugs. “What can he do?”

The look Wymack gives him speaks volumes, starting with _are you fucking kidding me?_ and ending with _he’ll kill you_.

Neil ignores that. “I’m a Fox now.”

Those are the magic words. Suddenly Wymack doesn’t have a word to say, probably because his soft heart is growing yet another size in his chest and blocking them from coming out. He, like the others, is weak for their stray cat of a new member acting as though he’s found a home here.

“You need to be careful,” Wymack says eventually.

“I will be,” Neil replies, serious, a lie that Andrew can taste. Apparently Neil knows exactly what he’s doing. Or at least he does now, in the aftermath.

Wymack looks at him for a long moment, and then nods, letting Neil go past. He doesn’t stop Andrew, but he gets a considering look too.

“Same goes for you,” he says. Andrew waves a dismissive hand at him and leaves. 

He catches up with Neil on the next floor up, overtaking him and turning into one of the empty rooms. He leaves the door open as an invitation he knows Neil won’t be able to resist.

He goes to the window and pushes it open, lighting a cigarette and exhaling the smoke out into the open air. He doesn’t look down. He also doesn’t use a lighter, but Neil doesn’t comment on that.

“Going to warn me to be careful, too?” he asks from just inside the doorway.

“Now why would I do that?” Andrew asks. “It would be a waste of my breath.”

“You know why I did it.”

“Do I?”

“You know that Kevin would have run straight back to the Crows,” Neil says, combative. “When he’s here he almost manages to convince himself that he’s brave enough to stay. But back there in the same room with Riko, he forgot all of that.”

Andrew has a deal with Kevin that says that shouldn’t happen, but the last thing he is, is stupid. He knows that without Neil’s timely intervention, Kevin likely would have climbed in Riko’s car at the end of tonight and gone back to Evermore. He says, “That’s why I let you stay.”

Neil pauses, almost-but-not-quite a double-take. “I thought you wanted me to fight.”

“I never said that,” Andrew replies. “Though you seem to be doing it regardless.”

“That wasn’t a fight.”

“Wasn’t it? I don’t know. I think you held your ground surprisingly well, for someone who should by rights be terrified.”

“I’m not afraid of Riko,” Neil says. “Maybe if he was going to hand me straight to my father. But he’s just a bit player, power and temper aside. There are far scarier people out there.”

“And when he goes running to his father?”

“He can’t. Ichirou is the heir of the Ravens, and Riko is forbidden from communicating with either him or his father. He gets all his commands through Tetsuji,” Neil says. “Why do you think he’s got such a chip on his shoulder?”

That is an interesting way to describe a dangerous sociopath. “He’ll kill you just the same, if he gets a chance.”

“If you really want me to stay, you’re not doing a good job of convincing me.”

“It’s not about what I want,” Andrew replies. “Kevin wants you to stay. You want to stay. You told me that yourself. Be useful and keep Kevin here while you do it.”

“You nearly threw me out because of Kevin.”

“And now I’m telling you to stay because of him,” Andrew says.

“I can’t leave.”

Andrew raises an eyebrow. “You think Wymack and the others wouldn’t set you free the instant you asked them to?”

“So I could go where, exactly?”

“So you could keep running like you half wish you could,” Andrew replies. “You’re a study in contradictions, Neil. I should know better than to find that fascinating, but there’s something interesting in watching a man try to tear himself apart.”

Neil looks back at him with a furrow in his brow, uncomprehending. It figures.

“There’s a difference between what I want and what I should be doing,” he says eventually.

“You don’t want to leave,” Andrew says. It’s the truth, like everything he says. He flicks the butt of his cigarette out the window and slams it closed. He’d prefer to put his fist through it, but he’s on a streak in terms of not self-harming and he figures it would be a waste to break it. “What will it take to make you stay?”

“Are you offering me a deal?”

“Are you going to get down on your knees this time to seal it?” 

The corner of Neil’s mouth twitches before his expression turns serious. “I’m not afraid of Riko. I am afraid of my father. But I don’t think you’re capable of fighting him on your own, never mind the rest of the Ravens.”

Andrew lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “I asked what you’d take in exchange for staying, not an evaluation.”

“Does that mean you disagree with me?”

“Not relevant,” Andrew dismisses. Neil is standing in arm’s reach now, and it’s not like Andrew doesn’t know when it happened, but it’s still surprising. Andrew stretches out an arm and taps the hollow of Neil’s throat, through which a black curlicue scrolls. “What is it you’re afraid your father will do to you? After all, you’re a Fox now.”

“He has friends on the Council,” Neil says. “People with power. I don’t want to find out just how corrupt they are by them taking me from here. I’d rather die than go back.”

This is a man who has been running for years, but who joined the Foxes out of exhaustion as much as anything. Andrew wonders if he’d been facing exactly that choice - his father, or death - when he’d stumbled in the roses at Renee’s house. He thinks he knows the answer.

He taps Neil’s throat again. “Then we can have a deal.”

Neil looks at him for a very long moment. “I didn’t ever picture you as a cyanide pill,” he says.

Andrew looks back at him, waiting.

“Fine,” he says, with a quick shake of his head which is more from incredulity than anything else. “It’s a deal.”

 

* * *

 

Their second circle goes more smoothly than the first - or, at least, nothing gets scorched. Andrew ends it with the popping feel of hysteria in his chest, but it’s not overwhelming.

Afterwards Dan and Wymack lead them in a series of drills. Most of the Foxes have little formal training, and their knowledge is patchy at best. Sometimes they train their control, sometimes methods of healing with Aaron their reluctant leader, and sometimes it’s war-play.

That’s not what they like to call it, of course. But there’s a reason why they’ve pushed attack and defense more and more in the last year, and it’s not just because Kevin is here now to teach it.

Andrew is theoretically all for knowing how to defend himself, but Kevin’s forcefulness and one-size-fits-all training methods mean that after they’ve finished their first lot of drills Andrew goes to leave.

“Where are you going?” Kevin demands before anyone else gets a chance to say anything.

Andrew grins, sick. “I’m leaving.”

“No you aren’t,” Wymack says, though his heart isn’t really in it.

Andrew gets to the door before Kevin catches up with him, hand on his shoulder.

Old bloods don’t know how to fight without magic - they’re raised to think that physically laying hands on someone is weak, pathetic even. The Foxes are largely different, but Kevin isn’t. That makes it easy to wrench his hand off of Andrew and twist it until Kevin can only move where Andrew wants him to be. That means against the wall, with a rattling thud.

There’s a shiver from underneath them like something giant is teetering on the edge of wakefulness. The lights overhead dim and then come back to life.

Kevin looks frustrated, eyes flickering to the roof. Andrew likes that look on his face.

“Careful now,” Andrew says. “You seem to keep getting fixated on things you can’t have.”

“I can have this,” he says, because he’s stupid and entitled and doesn’t understand anything.

“Let him go,” Aaron says quietly. He sounds tense. He doesn’t understand anything either, but he knows what Andrew will do if tested.

No one stops Andrew after that. They don’t like Aaron much, but they’re always more inclined to listen to the normal twin.

All of them, bar Neil, apparently.

He appears over Andrew where he’s lying on his back on the asphalt between cars, smoking absently. “You know someone could run you over here, right?”

“You would be so lucky,” Andrew returns. Circles always make him chattier.

“You also know that the Foxes would be much more powerful if you stopped pulling them in two,” Neil says. Andrew gets the impression it isn’t really a question.

“You’re always so quick to blame things on me, Neil,” Andrew says, with relish. “Anyone would think you don’t trust me.”

“I blame things on you when they’re your fault,” Neil corrects. “You’ve got Kevin and Aaron and Nicky deferring to you on everything, even when I know they don’t agree. Kevin knows that we’re stronger together. Nicky wants to make friends. They don’t for a reason, and I know it’s because of you.”

Andrew shrugs. The movement makes him bob off the asphalt, scraping his shoulders through his shirt and coat. “Loyalty is probably a foreign concept to you, turncoat.”

“I hope you call Kevin that, too,” Neil says. “Also, I know what loyalty looks like. Your brand of co-dependence isn’t the same thing.”

“Your puppy-dog devotion isn’t loyalty either,” Andrew says, for argument’s sake. It’s not as though he doesn’t know his promises are different to loyalty. If they were, Aaron wouldn’t be dancing around the girl of his dreams when he thinks Andrew won’t notice. “Do you have a point?”

“Yes,” Neil says. “This coven is the weakest I’ve ever encountered, but it’s made of some of the strongest witches I’ve met. Even Nicky - I would have killed to be able to do what he can do while I was running.”

“That doesn’t surprise me at all,” Andrew replies. Nicky is careful, but if he wants to he can have someone falling into bed with him, or in love with him, or angry enough to kill. Andrew doesn’t approve of that kind of magic because he can’t, but he can certainly understand Neil seeing the attraction.

“I suppose it wouldn’t,” Neil says, with a twitch of his mouth. “So - will you let me make the Foxes a cohesive group?”

“What’s in it for me?”

“You want to fight. It’ll be a lot easier for you if you’re not fighting internal battles in the coven at the same time,” is the whip-quick reply. Apparently Neil has been thinking about this. Perhaps with the encouragement of the older Foxes, if Andrew knows them at all.

“If you can come up with a clever way of making us all one big happy family, be my guest,” Andrew says, shrugging again. “I promise I won’t interfere.”

Neil blinks like he wasn’t expecting it to be so easy. He still says, “Thank you,” and means it sincerely.

“I wouldn’t thank me yet,” Andrew recommends.

 

* * *

 

It’s not that Andrew doesn’t have a long memory. It’s just that he’s not interested in holding grudges that will never serve him. That means when Kevin comes to him later like nothing happened, Andrew is satisfied to let him pretend that’s the truth.

Kevin might be able to learn, but Andrew hasn’t seen evidence of it yet.

 

* * *

 

Neil comes to the greenhouse because he apparently doesn’t understand that some things require an invitation.

His mistake is that Aaron is there. Well, technically his mistake is that he triggers Aaron’s wards, which means that Andrew hears a clatter in the entrance and comes out to find Neil hanging upside down from the clematis over the door.

Aaron has always preferred hothouse breeds and bonsais, but that’s not all he works with. The clematis isn’t protective by nature - it whispers _friend or foe friend or foe?_ in a language Neil does not speak, rather than _death death death_ \- but it’s less threatening to look at than Andrew’s roses, which makes it more subtle. Also, it’s only the first of the protections in the greenhouses.

Neil is looking back at Andrew, seemingly unperturbed other than a growing redness in his face. “Are you enjoying this?” 

“What do you want?” Andrew replies.

“I could feel magic up here,” Neil says. “I wondered what was going on.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Andrew points out. Neil smirks, which looks interesting from this angle. 

Aaron appears then, still wearing the gloves he wears for brewing. He takes one look at Neil, scowls, and then turns away again. There’s the faintest kiss of power from him, and the clematis drops Neil straight onto the floor. He yelps.

“Asshole,” he mutters a second later, rubbing his head balefully as he pushes himself upright. He looks overhead at the clematis, now returned to its pretty sprawl over the doorway, pink flowers and soft green leaves, and then back to Andrew. And then past him. “That’s a lot of plants.”

He’s not wrong about that. Some of Andrew’s roses are clustered to one side of the first room, with a clutch of miniature fruit trees and herbs on the other. Further into the greenhouse are the hot rooms where Aaron grows orchids and an interesting variety of poisonous, pretty things, and then the bonsai room. The entire space is warm and damp, smelling of loam and earth and new growth like rain.

At the back of the building is Aaron’s workspace, delineated by a frosted glass wall. The shape of him moving around is just barely visible through greenery. Back there it looks like a proper hedgewitch’s den, hung with drying plants and smelling vaguely of perfume and food and chemicals, but Neil won’t make it that far without a fight. The door is warded with every inch of the sheltering and protectiveness of vast old trees, and a taste of thorns.

“What do you really want?” Andrew asks.

Neil moves over and examines a branch on one of Andrew’s roses. He doesn’t touch it, which is probably wise. Even from that distance, it’s whispering to Andrew, asking if it should bite.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Neil echoes, with the shadow of a smile. “You don’t make sense, and neither does your brother.”

“Maybe you just aren’t particularly observant,” Andrew says.

“I don’t think that’s it.”

“You wouldn’t.” Neil seems to be blind to the truth when it’s directly in his face. 

“I want to know why you won’t practice with Kevin,” Neil asks. “He knows a lot of spells, for defense and attack. Seeing as you’re so interested fighting, it seems strange that you don’t want to learn what you can from him.”

“I know how to fight,” Andrew replies.

“To hone your control, then.”

“Why do I need control, when I wear these?” Andrew asks, holding up an arm. His fetters aren’t visible under his armbands, but they don’t need to be.

“Because you don’t want to rely on the coven for your control for the rest of your life?”

“I don’t care about that.”

Neil stares at him for a long moment, thoughtful. “You act like you’re a bomb, you know. Like you’re just raw energy waiting to take everything and everyone with you. How did you become so violently self-destructive?”

“Is that really what you want to know? Or is it ‘why don’t you care about collateral damage?’” Andrew asks.

“No,” Neil says. “Indulge me. I’m curious.”

“I already told you. I don’t care.”

“You care about Kevin.”

“Kevin is useful to me,” Andrew corrects.

Neil’s head tilts thoughtfully. He strokes the curving flower of a peace lily with a single finger. “You are protecting him. What does he give you in exchange for that?”

Andrew breathes in, and then breathes out. “Perhaps he is giving me a way out of being shackled, hm?”

“What, a quick death?” Neil says. From someone with a sense of humour, that would seem like a joke. From Neil it falls flat. “Even if it were possible and he found a way - even if he petitioned the Council and they released you - I don’t think you care about that. Not really.”

It’s not a question, so Andrew doesn’t answer.

“He called you violent and joyless,” Neil continues. He doesn’t have to say who. “He said you were waiting to see if he could keep up his end of the deal. So, what does he have that you want?”

“Neil,” Andrew says, with the ghost of a smile. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

Neil hums at that. It’s interesting how quickly he can transition from needle-eyed pushing to cool and relaxed, at ease with Andrew now rather than determined to mine him for secrets. It’s funny that he seems to know how far he can push Andrew already.

“You always smile after circles,” he observes. “It’s the only time you ever do.”

If he thinks he’s going to win points for that particular observation, he’s wrong. If he thinks it’s something no one else has noticed, it’s impressive he’s lived this long on the run. “Haven’t you heard? I’m crazy.”

The look Neil gives him is halfway to an eyeroll. Andrew says, “Do you think I’m lying?”

That makes him pause. “Well, are you? The others say you’re psychotic. I didn’t believe them.”

“I’m not psychotic,” Andrew says.

Neil stares at Andrew, waiting for him to go on, but he doesn’t. After a second he turns away, touching the leaves of one of the roses as he does so. It’s prickle-edged and catches in the tired fabric of his hoodie.

Andrew doesn’t even tell it to leave him be. There’s no threat of thorns waiting for Neil.

 

 

* * *

 

Apparently in the wake of the banquet, Kevin is driving Neil harder than he was before. Andrew keeps seeing the bite of fear in Kevin’s eyes at the oddest of times, and he can understand that. Sometimes it’s the smallest triggers that hit you the hardest.

He’s not running, though. He’s thrown himself into Neil’s education and his own control, and, so far, those things serve passably as anchors for him.

Andrew is lying on his back doing a bastardised version of meditation which is mostly dissociation - meditation wasn’t really designed for someone like him - when the other two in their circle catch his attention.

When it comes to elementals, there is an expected degree of wayward magic involved in any of their workings. Kevin is a rarity in this regard, but Andrew is used the surging, wild feel of Neil’s magic when he summons it.

Usually it’s kept in check. Today it pushes at the boundaries of the circle like it wants to be let out. Andrew turns his head so his cheek is pressed to the floor to watch.

The two of them sit face-to-face, north and south, several feet of space between their crossed knees.

“Keep control,” Kevin says. His eyes are open now - Neil’s are closed, but his brow is creased. There’s a taste of wind and rain in the air.

Andrew sits up.

“Neil,” Kevin says. It appears to not be doing anything. “Nathaniel.”

That does at least have an effect. Neil opens his eyes, and they’re moon-blind. The collar at his throat is crawling, and not just with the increase in his breathing, the pounding of his heart. Andrew’s wrists are pulsing in symphony.

Feedback pours from him direct to Andrew, and without thinking about it Andrew takes what he’s fed and earths it rather than let it go further into the circle. He doubts Kevin is doing the same. Every Fox is probably wide awake and sparking right now.

Andrew stands. There’s no keeping him out - he made this boundary spell too, even at a distance and without any actual involvement. He steps through it like it doesn’t exist.

Inside, the pressure is impressive. Kevin is still talking, though he falls quiet when he notices Andrew is here. He watches Andrew walk across the circle like he’s never seen anything like it, his eyes on stalks. Andrew ignores him in favour of getting as close to Neil as he can without being scorched.

“Breathe,” he says, a command. When there’s no response, he reaches through the air that glitters between them, the hair rising on his arm, and flicks Neil on the forehead.

He flinches and blinks, and when his eyes reopen they’ve lost the silvery sheen. He blinks at Andrew in complete bewilderment.

“Breathe,” Andrew repeats, “Before you incinerate all of us.”

Neil breathes in. On the exhale, the magic around them finally snaps, breaking apart into nothing but a distant hum like the memory of it. His next indrawn breath shudders a little as he realises just how close he came to losing his grip.

“What the,” Kevin sputters, “You’re meant-”

“Shut up, Kevin,” Andrew tells him, and just about hears the surprised click of teeth when Kevin’s jaw snaps shut. He shoves Neil in the centre of his chest so he drops onto his back. “Keep breathing.”

“I’m fine,” Neil says. He’s pale now, shivering, fingers clenching into his own shirt at his sides. He looks like he’s about to have a panic attack.

Andrew, impatient, prods him in the ribcage. It makes him take a startled, jumping breath, but the next one comes easier. After a few more, he turns from dishwater grey to a slightly more normal shade of white, fever-spots on his cheeks.

“That’s enough for tonight,” Kevin says eventually, once Neil seems to have regained his grip.

“No,” Neil protests instantly, pushing himself up onto one shoulder. “No, I can keep going.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Kevin replies. He slashes a hand down on a diagonal, breaking the circle down around them. His magic is very kinetic, all caught up in the lines of his body before it breaks out of his hands. It’s like he’s transmuted his bones into the wands his ancestors used to use. “We’ll begin again tomorrow. Don’t waste my time when you are not at your best.”

Neil’s temper sparks. Literally. “So you want me to get better, but you won’t bother to teach me unless I’m in perfect condition?”

Kevin stands and crosses his arms. “No.”

“I doubt Riko’s going to wait for me to get myself together.”

“No, Riko would kill you outright,” Kevin replies. “I won’t give him the satisfaction of doing it for him, or for letting you do it yourself.”

Neil blinks again. Kevin says, “Get control of yourself.”

It’s a familiar command, and Neil pulls in a breath before doing anything else. Instantly, the crackle in the air dies. He only seems to realise it was there at all once it’s gone, looking at his wrists and hands with consternation.

“We’re done here,” Kevin says, and leaves.

Neil is under control, so Andrew stands and follows him. He doesn’t miss the thud of Neil’s head bumping back down against the floor, nor his muttered curse.

 

* * *

 

Andrew shoves cash into Nicky’s hand and tells him to buy Neil something to wear. Then he goes in search of Neil to tell him he’s coming out with them tonight. Andrew has managed to pry Kevin away from his obsessive night practices for once, and he doesn’t mean for Neil to convince Kevin to back out.

These days the promise of getting blind drunk isn’t enough to make Kevin happy. Neil, who doesn’t drink at all, is unlikely to be pleased by the alternative, but Andrew has a feeling he’ll come along anyway.

Neil is up on the roof of the apartment, away from the greenhouse but in the wind’s grip. He’s a lonely dark shape against the skyline, hair whipped into a frenzy and face upturned to the sky. The air is dancing with him, almost, toying with his clothes and pulsing with magic as Neil pulls it in.

“What is it?” Neil asks, without turning around.

“You’re coming out with us tonight,” Andrew says, an order, not a question.

Neil shifts, the wind picking up. “I’d rather jump off this building.”

“Careful what you wish for,” Andrew advises. “I could push you off, if you’d prefer.” He wonders if the wind would catch Neil up before he hit the ground. He’s heard stories about weather witches who use their magic to fly.

“Cyanide pill,” Neil muses. “At least promise to leave the rowan out of my drinks this time.”

“Even you aren’t stupid enough to fall for that one twice,” Andrew replies, and then leaves. He isn’t surprised when he steps out of his bedroom at ten and finds Neil waiting for him in the clothes that Nicky has to have chosen for him. They’re black, and cling to him.

He follows Andrew down to the car. “So, is my stupidity the only reason you aren’t trying the rowan again?”

“Your stupidity is the reason you’re asking that question,” Andrew tells him boredly.

“We’ll keep it clean tonight, Neil, don’t worry,” Nicky chirps from a flight above them, his voice ringing against the concrete. “It’ll be fun.”

“Doubt it,” Neil mutters, only loud enough for Andrew and Kevin to hear, but he doesn’t protest again.

Roland grins at the sight of them when they arrive, his eyes flashing to Neil last of all. “Hello, boys. I didn’t expect to see this one again, but I can’t say I’m sorry.”

Roland is an impossible flirt, but Neil is impregnable, staring back at him without a hint of a reaction. It makes Roland’s smile grow.

“I know what this lot want to drink,” he says. “What can I get you?”

“Soda,” Neil replies, unimpressed. “Sealed.”

Roland passes over an unopened soda can and a glass. Neil tilts the glass in his hand before pouring any of his drink in, studying it for any sign of contamination.

“Paranoid,” Andrew remarks.

Neil glares at him. “Wouldn’t you be?”

“Paranoia is a waste of time.”

“Paranoia has kept me alive since I was ten years old.”

“You’re the one who would rather be dead than keep living like that.”

“I never said that.”

“It was implied,” Andrew tells him. “Go find a table. Take Kevin with you.”

“I’m not a dog,” Kevin snaps, but he still follows Neil like a puppy anyway.

Roland watches them go, his hands busy, and then flicks a look to Andrew. “So you’ve moved on to flirting with him now?”

Andrew looks back at him, unfazed. After a moment Roland laughs, shaking his head. “Fine, be like that.”

Roland is welcome to think what he likes. Andrew’s life experience thus far has taught him admirably how people are disinclined to listen to him, even when he does deign to open his mouth, and he was bound to eventually become tired of wasting his breath.

Roland pushes the full tray across to him. He keeps a finger hooked in the edge, which puts them face to face over the bar. Roland smells like vodka, a little, and underneath that leather and copper. Those last two are particular to faeries or those of the blood.

“Come find me later,” he says, with a smirk. It’s softer than Andrew is used to on anyone with eyes that blue in his acquaintance. “Unless the pretty redhead is it for you now. No judgement here.”

Andrew waits for him to take his hand off of the tray, picking it up when Roland releases it. He doesn’t answer. He can do that later. Roland’s huff of a laugh just catches up with him when he turns away.

The drinks go down quick amongst them, Neil leaning back on his stool watching with quiet eyes. He’s thoughtful, flickering a glance to Andrew now and then like he has a question he somehow didn’t get out in the greenhouse the other day. It’s a sharp contrast to Kevin, who as usual is drinking like he’s trying to outpace his own liver.

Eventually Aaron and Nicky peel away to go dance, bouncing off one another as they walk, the alcohol kicking in.

“How can all of you drink like that?” Neil asks. When neither of them answers, he goes on, “Without losing control?”

“What the fuck do you know about control?” Kevin asks with a sneer. Neil ignores him.

“Practice,” Andrew provides. “How did your mother bind you to her?”

Neil blinks, thrown. “What?”

Andrew indicates the space between the two of them with a finger. “You see what we’re doing here? You ask a question and I answer it. Then I ask a question, and you answer it.”

Neil shifts his weight, and then says, “The usual way.”

Then she probably shouldn’t have survived as long as she did - Andrew wonders if Neil burnt her out, or if she died for another reason.

“How are you not a Crow right now?” Neil asks.

“I’m going to get another drink,” Kevin says, clearly not drunk enough to hear them talk about his old coven. Andrew half-watches him push through the crowd to hang over the bar and ignore everyone, but only the exceptionally brave will bother to talk to him anyway. He’s not the inviting sort, except when he wants to be.

“What, you don’t think I just got a better offer?” Andrew says.

“They didn’t give you a choice though,” Neil says, a statement which his eyes make into a question. Breaking the rules of their game already. Andrew couldn’t say he was surprised.

Andrew traces a finger along the rim of his glass. “Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

Andrew smiles, just a little. “They couldn’t make me. Is that the same thing as giving me a choice?”

Neil blinks like he doesn’t understand. That’s fair - he probably can’t imagine. Together, the Ravens seem undefeatable and terrifying, and he’s been running from them for most of his life.

Andrew has never been the kind of man to run. He’s always held his ground. He did the same before the Ravens when they reached out to take him, unafraid of death and threatening to drag every single last one of them with him.

They’d believed him. It was hard not to, when the very ground beneath their feet started to rebel.

“Why turn them down?” Neil asks.

Andrew looks at him. After a moment Neil shrugs tightly. “You came from nothing. The Raven Coven is powerful, and it’s not like anyone knew the Crows would turn out like they have back then. Why not say yes?”

“Because I like to tell Kevin no,” Andrew says. _Because I didn’t care, and he did, and I wanted him to not get something that he wanted for once._ “What’s your reason?”

Neil smiles a little, a quirk of his mouth. His eyes don’t match it. “I promised my mother I wouldn’t stop running.”

Andrew says, “I think you might have broken that promise. How did she die?”

“My father’s people caught up with us. She died of her wounds a day later,” Neil answers, without missing a beat. “How did yours?”

“I killed her,” Andrew says, because he does not lie.

To his credit, Neil doesn’t jerk like he’s shocked. He’s probably had some thoughts of parricide himself. He just watches Andrew for a long moment, and then says, “Why?”

“Because I told her I would if she hit Aaron again,” Andrew answers, and stands.

“It’s your turn,” Neil says. Backlit by the flashing lights focussed on the dance floor, his eyes are black.

“I don’t have to take it now,” Andrew answers, and then leaves.

 

* * *

 

On Sunday night Andrew sits bolt upright in bed out of sleep, heart pounding, and for a moment has no idea why.

There’s no weight on his mattress. The door didn’t squeak as it was opened. It’s locked, anyway, but locks don’t always keep witches out. There was no footsteps on the floor too close to him.

Then he feels it - the apartment wards are rippling, tested from the outside, the centre of the disturbance at their front door.

He slams out of his bedroom and nearly crashes into a white-faced Kevin in the hall. Behind them, Aaron clatters out of his own room, Nicky on his heels. Andrew makes it to the door first, wrenching it open.

Aaron swears, and there’s a cool kiss of protective magic flooding over Andrew from behind. It’s not necessary - the wards might be shaking, but there’s nothing that a dead fox can do to hurt him.

There’s twisting sigils written in blood scarring their way into the floor on the doorstep like they’ve turned to acid. The caster is nowhere in sight, but the spell is ongoing - Andrew can feel it working to destabilise the ward stones themselves. He sinks himself in to bolster them and feels the drag start on him as well.

“Andrew,” Aaron growls, a warning.

“Shut up,” Andrew replies. He jerks a little when he feels Aaron push into the wards as well, half-shoving back at Andrew and half drawing himself into the wards. As ever, their magic clashes for a moment before easing into alignment, forcing at the rot which is eating its way through their spells.

It’s a mistake. Their magic should force the boundaries of the spell, cracking it, but instead it seems to expand like it wants to absorb and break the two of them as well.

“Don’t cast,” Neil says from behind them. “Any of you.”

“What’s going on?” Nicky asks him. “Aaron?”

“It’s self-perpetuating,” Aaron replies. “Andrew, get out.”

“Too late for that,” Andrew says calmly. “It’s trying to unravel me too.”

There’s a pause. “Don’t let it!” Nicky squawks. “Aaron-”

“Nicky, shut up,” Aaron snarls back. His hand seals on Andrew’s shoulder, and Andrew doesn’t flinch but he grits his jaw.

“I can dismantle it, probably,” Neil says. “Kevin, I need you to-”

“No,” Andrew cuts him off, and then casts.

As a sixteen-year-old, freedom for Andrew had never been a priority. He’d worn his shackles carelessly, not caring that they could be a death sentence, not caring that removing them would destroy him. It wasn’t until he saw the threat they could pose to the people he dealt with that he started to learn.

Magic is a funny thing. It creates on one hand and takes from the other. Andrew’s power is in creation, but he was taught how to take a long time ago. He says the names of three sigils that sear his mouth and burn his throat, feeling the bands on his wrists react even in the periphery of the magic, and feeling his heart leap in response.

The wards break. The spell, with nothing to feed on anymore, consumes itself. Neil squashes through the doorway past them to scrub a foot across the sigils, smearing them where he can. His foot nudges the dead fox, and Nicky makes a squeaking noise of protest.

“Shit,” Kevin says. It’s a fair summation. The sudden shattering of their wards is sending reverberations through the building, and probably through the coven at their opposite ends of the city. The others are likely jerking awake right now if they weren’t already, thinking that the monsters are under attack.

“It’s not Raven work,” Neil says. “Crows, maybe.”

They look to Kevin, who is still grey and pinched. The others probably take it as confirmation, but Andrew knows it’s just the all-encompassing fear that Kevin can’t stop from taking over.

“How did you end it like that?” Kevin demands, painting aggression over top of it.

“I can read,” Andrew replies. He doesn’t feel like explaining.

Neil looks at him for a long moment. It figures that he would recognise that magic. It’s one of the spells from the little book he has hidden away in his binder. Used on one of them, it would end the spell containing them - along with their life.

“Let’s get inside,” Nicky says, arms wrapped around himself like he’s cold. “C’mon, shut the door. The others will probably be here soon.”

Without the wards, the walls feel hollow and strange. They gather in the living room, and Andrew sits by the window to smoke while the others fidget and pace. It’s not long before he feels the familiar press of Wymack’s power approaching, and Dan and Matt are just behind him. They must have broken speed limits to get here so fast, and they approach at a less-than-cautious run.

This time, Wymack doesn’t knock, just comes bursting inside with the other two at his back. He pauses just for a second to take them all in, whole and unharmed, and exhales. It’s not the first time he’s appeared ready to bleed for them, and Andrew doubts it’ll be the last, but somehow it’s still surprising.

“What the hell is going on?” he demands, stepping aside to let Matt and Dan into the room. They don’t venture much further than the door - this is still Andrew’s territory - but they both look to Neil to check him over, and then at the rest of them in a belated show of concern. Interesting, but unsurprising.

“Someone broke the wards,” Kevin says.

“Yeah, Andrew did,” Neil says, which means that all three of their would-be rescuers look to him. “Someone cast something that was eating them, breaking them apart and stealing the magic. The Crows, or someone trying to make it look like the Crows.”

“You would know,” Aaron mutters. Nicky kicks him.

“So, what, they just cast the spell and ran?” Dan asks. She seems to be scanning the perimeter like she’s waiting for someone to attack.

“Yeah,” Nicky says. “I mean, unless it’s a trap.”

There’s a long moment of silence before Kevin says, “No, it’s - it’s a threat.”

Wymack raises an eyebrow. He looks a second away from tapping his foot. “It’s a lot of magic just to make a threat.”

“They have plenty of magic,” Kevin replies quietly.

“If it’s a threat, then it’s an effective one. If they’d stuck around after the wards came down, you’d all be dead now,” Wymack says. It’s a slight exaggeration, because none of them are that easy to kill. “You’re moving into the Tower. Pack what you need for the night. The rest of it we’ll come back for tomorrow.”

Surprisingly, it’s Kevin who looks up from the floor and says, “No.”

Wymack crosses his arms. “No?”

The set of Kevin’s mouth is mulish, but he just shrugs. It’s possible he doesn’t really have a reason to not want to go. “You don’t think getting us all together in one place might be the trap?”

“I don’t know,” Wymack says. “But I know we’re stronger together.”

Good old-fashioned witch thinking. Dan says, “He’s right.”

After that, there isn’t much more arguing. They split up to pack, with Andrew the last to leave. Wymack follows him when he leaves the apartment for the roof, following Aaron in turn. By the time he gets to the greenhouse, the plants are already whispering, fraught in their own way by Aaron’s turbulent emotions. They reach out to Andrew and then calm again, a little.

“We can dismantle most of this and relocate it,” Wymack says from the doorway. “There’s space on the Tower roof-”

“There’s no point,” Andrew tells him as he digs a hessian bag of fist-sized rocks from under one of the benches on the far wall. “This isn’t a long-term solution, and you know it.”

“Do I?”

“I won’t stay in the Tower forever,” Andrew says. “And this will end one way or another.”

Aaron comes from the far room then, his oversized kit under one arm and his eyes flat. He flicks a look at Andrew and takes in the bag curled into his hand.

Outside, Andrew shakes the sack contents onto the roof, revealing four egg-shaped crystals of pale blue veined in golden pyrite. Wymack watches as they lay them at the cardinal points, and doesn’t interfere when they take the northern point and the southern point respectively.

Aaron’s mood makes casting strength into the wards very, very easy. The magic pours out of them both, mingling and then spreading. It won’t hold out against the same kind of spell Andrew just broke, but it’ll require more power to make it take.

The wards end up twisted, green and violent and vicious with thorns. They’re like something out of the fairy tale where princes end up at the feet of towers, shredded and bleeding onto the earth. Together, Aaron and Andrew exhale and let go, sealing the wards together so they gleam and then disappear.

“Are you trying to prove a point?” Wymack says, once the magic has faded back to darkness.

“You know me,” Andrew replies, like a joke except for that he’s dead serious. “I’m always trying to make a statement.”

 

* * *

 

The Tower is spacious, but not so spacious they get a room each.

That means Kevin, Andrew and Neil are together, and Nicky and Aaron share the room next door. It’s not just them moving in, either. Matt joins the other two in their room, and the three girls take the one on the far side.

“This is just like being back in college,” Renee says, smiling as she takes it in. Andrew, who never went to college, says nothing.

It means they start having circles and training every day. It also means that Kevin and Neil can have their practices at night without Andrew having to drive anywhere. He still follows them down a level and watches them - or ignores them entirely - anyway.

The both of them watch him like a bomb about to go off. Not all the time, but often enough it’s nearly irritating. It’s also ironic, because the rest of the coven are watching the two of them exactly the same way. The attack on the apartment wards was the first real strike in this fight, and it’s only a matter of time before the next comes. Most of the Foxes seem convinced it’s going to come from the inside, in the form of a violent self-destruction.

The rest of the time Andrew spends on the roof, chain smoking and refusing to think. Renee gives him a potted fern, but after Andrew ignores it for a day Aaron takes it into his room to care for it.

He does go down to the basement on the third day to add to the wards. It’s not particularly surprising when he hears feet on the stairs behind him halfway through his spell. Neil fortuitously doesn’t interrupt him.

“Kevin came down here yesterday,” he says eventually, prodding at the wall beside him. There are layers upon layers of old wards there, and they spark at his touch. “I wondered when you would.”

It’s not as though Andrew was drained by the combination of breaking his old wards and putting up the one on the greenhouse. It’s more that he was trying to decide whether it’s worth the energy to ward the entire building when he could just do their bedrooms and be done with it. It’s the night practices that have brought him here now, though. That, and the whisper in the back of his head that anything, anything at all, can happen if he isn’t looking closely enough.

“Kevin would probably benefit from you joining us when we practice,” Neil says when Andrew doesn’t say anything. “Three always works better than two.”

Old witch rules, of course. Andrew, who has always been one part of two making a whole, doesn’t quite see it, and doesn’t really care to.

“I’m not interested,” Andrew says.

“You should be,” Neil replies. “I know you care about Kevin.”

“I don’t care for anything or anyone,” Andrew says. Even as he says it, it feels more like he’s reminding himself than stating a fact. The truth should taste different in his mouth than this.

Neil looks back at him, mouth curved down, eyes still and serious and gleaming almost silver. When Andrew moves past him to leave, he stands well clear even in the narrow space at the foot of the stairs so they do not touch. Even knowing that there’s nothing there that Andrew can have, just like always, a tiny part of Andrew still _wants_.

It’s stupid. Andrew should really know better.

 

* * *

 

Renee catches up with him one afternoon in the lounge while he’s getting a drink - or, more accurately, stealing one of Matt’s cans of soda from the fridge in the lounge.

She’s smiling as usual, warm and generous. “Hello. Are you interested in sparring?”

Andrew shrugs and follows her down to one of the mid-sized workrooms on a lower level, kicking his shoes off and feeling the wood under his bare feet. It’s been a while since they’ve done this, because it’s been a while since they lived together. There’s still a routine to it that is almost comfortable, though. Andrew puts his soda on the windowsill and wonders abstractly if Renee will throw him in that direction and spill it.

“Warm up, first,” she prods, so they jog laps around the room which isn’t quite big enough for it side by side.

It’s not until they’re stretching on the floor that she says, “Neil finally came and talked to me, did you know?”

Andrew and Neil aren’t quite on the level of making idle chit-chat, but Andrew still isn’t surprised. He has known for a while, through both Renee and his own observations, that Neil avoids Renee like the plague, but Neil isn’t by nature avoidant. He knew Neil would talk to her sooner or later.

“He had questions,” she says, “About me. And about you.”

“I presume you answered them,” Andrew says. “Did he ask you to smuggle him away yet?”

“No,” she replies. She grins a little. “He did ask if you and Kevin are dating, though.”

Andrew raises an eyebrow. “Is he trying to settle a bet?”

“No, he just asked about the one on us,” she replies. “I told him the truth.”

“You say that like you think I’ll be surprised.”

“I think you usually are when people do.”

“I think dishonesty isn’t one of your bad habits,” Andrew tells her.

“You might be right about that,” Renee says peaceably, pushing herself onto her feet. “Come on. Let’s begin.”

She doesn’t throw him into the can of soda, probably because she doesn’t want to break the window. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t throw him everywhere else.

 

* * *

 

He goes to the greenhouse because Aaron needs ingredients, and because he needs to check his plants.

He goes alone, leaving Kevin in Neil’s possession. It’s a rarity these days, being alone, and Andrew isn’t particularly interested in it as a concept.

On the other hand, he is never really alone. Aaron and he are bound by more than just blood in the strange way of witch twins, a connection he never really understood until he found out he actually had a brother.

He stops at the apartment first, finding it undisturbed despite the fact that the wards are still down. It adds proof to Kevin’s thoughts that it was meant to be a threat, but Andrew already knew that - if they’d really wanted to get inside, they could have done it earlier when all of them were at Eden’s Twilight.

Then he goes upstairs to the roof. He can feel as he approaches that the greenhouse wards are undisturbed, pulsing quietly with power. He would have known if they had been from wherever he’s been, of course, but it’s different up close. He can feel them down to the individual strands of his magic and his brother’s, woven into one, in some places utterly indistinguishable from one another.

That’s what costs him. He’s so caught up in the wards that he doesn’t notice the presence behind him until it’s too late.

 

* * *

 

“AJ. Wake up.”

The words aren’t what drag him back into consciousness. It’s the feeling of his magic being dragged out of him like it’s being ripped from his bones.

It’s agonising. Andrew’s vomiting before his eyes open, and it’s a small mercy that he’s been left collapsed on his side because it means he doesn’t choke. Retching hurts his head so bad he nearly blacks out again.

“AJ,” Drake croons. It’s been years, but Andrew hasn’t had the luxury of forgetting his voice.

He forces his eyes open, and finds Drake leaning over him. He’s smiling. His face is marred by marks that Andrew put there, deep pockmarks across his cheek from thorns. It hadn’t been intentional. Right now Andrew wishes he’d ripped out Drake’s throat.

He has no power, not with it draining away across the floor in lines of fire. He still has his voice. He says, rough as iron, “Fuck you.”

Drake’s smile grows. “Maybe later, baby. For now, you’ve got something everyone wants. But not for long.”

If Andrew just barely tilts his head, he can make out the wellstone his magic is being poured into glowing silver and gold. He’s in a basement, or something like it, lying on concrete. He’s in a ring of salt and rosemary and rowan ashes, and it was someone much smarter than Drake who thought of this particular plan.

Andrew wonders whether the mastermind considered the strength of the receptacle. Whether it’s diamond, or cheap pink quartz that will go off like a bomb when it reaches the limits of what it can hold. At least it’ll be a quick way to die.

A hand under his jaw forces his head back up so he’s looking back into Drake’s eyes. “I missed you, baby.”

Somewhere nearby, a door slams.

Drake’s attention is instantly diverted, his head turning away like a dog catching a scent. Before he can react, though, a door above them crashes open so hard the hinges shatter.

The first thing Andrew notices is the lightning spidering over the walls, scarring them with Lichtenberg figures and lighting the ceiling up blue-white. Any question he has about who has come dies then and there.

The second is his twin. He feels like water and stone, and his eyes are a weight that Andrew feels tying him down.

The ground trembles. The concrete under them cracks through. They’re under the earth, where the root networks criss-cross vast and entangled. That’s what bursts through the shattered floor, pale as the dead but much, much faster.

Drake doesn’t have a chance. Before he can run, he’s ensnared, the roots winding around his legs and up, swallowing his arms and torso and head until he’s barely visible. He cries out, but the sound gets swallowed.

Aaron’s eyes are entirely silver. Like a dreamer, he raises his hand and clenches his fist.

There’s a lot of blood. Andrew can’t really see straight, but he can smell it.

Andrew feels it the second Drake’s heart stops beating, because the magic on him starts to crumble. He gasps in a breath that sounds half-liquid. On second thought, he might smell blood because he seems to be breathing it.

“Andrew.” That’s Neil. He’s leaning over Andrew, white-faced, not touching him. “ _Aaron.”_

Aaron is past answering. His head turns to survey Neil, eyes still metallic, and it’s only when he looks to Andrew he blinks them clear.

He says Andrew’s name. He sounds afraid.

“I can break the spell, but I can’t do healing magic,” Neil raps out. Aaron falls to his knees at Andrew’s side, pressing a hand to the centre of his chest unerringly where the core of his magic is unravelling, unravelling.

“I can,” he says roughly. “Do it. Do it now.”

Neil says something that sounds like the air itself fracturing. There’s a screech of stressed magic, and then the pull halts. There’s a breathless second of nothingness before Andrew’s own magic bounces back into his body like a pinball the size and heat of the sun.

That’s the moment he blacks out.

 

* * *

 

He comes around somewhere else. It takes him a moment to realise that he’s back in the Tower. Someone’s hand is pressing into his, pouring warmth through his body - he snatches it away, biting the inside of his own cheek at the burst of empty-chested pain that sends through it, and opens his eyes.

“Lie still,” his brother tells him, brusque like he hadn’t just been holding Andrew’s hand and loaning him his own magic. “We had to earth most of your magic out through the coven afterwards. You’re drained.”

Andrew doesn’t have much choice but to do so. He’s too weak to sit up, too weak to really even keep his eyes open. He lies there and breathes, feeling the distant rekindling of his magic inside of him starting to rebuild itself from the spark that won’t go out as long as he is alive.

“Is he awake?” Neil’s voice rasps like he’s coming down with laryngitis.

“Yes,” Aaron says. There’s the sound of someone standing and moving across the room, and then someone replacing them at Andrew’s side.

“I can’t lend you anything, sorry,” Neil says.

“You don’t have anything to lend me,” Andrew replies without opening his eyes. “What did you use?”

“For what?” It’s clear by Neil’s voice that he’s trying to play dumb.

Andrew opens his eyes and fixes Neil with a look. He looks approximately like Andrew feels, pale-faced with deep purple half moons under his eyes. He flicks a guilty look across the room - probably to Aaron - and then says, “It was a master unlocking spell.”

“I already knew that,” Aaron replies from out of Andrew’s eyeline. He sounds bored. “Congratulations for not incinerating yourself.”

“You didn’t seem to have any better ideas,” Neil snaps back.

“I’m not criticising you,” Aaron clarifies. “For once. I’m genuinely impressed. By all rights, you should be dead. Andrew, can you move without throwing up yet?”

He doesn’t sound particularly hopeful for Andrew’s success at that, but Andrew manages to not vomit in the course of sitting upright. Once he’s there Aaron assists him in pouring a vile-smelling concoction down his throat. He only gags once.

“What is that?” Neil asks. His expression is repulsed. No one answers him anyway.

It works, fanning the flames in Andrew’s centre until they start to spread. He breathes through it, stretching his fingers.

Aaron looks at Neil and then hands him the rest of what’s in the cup. “Drink it.”

Neil looks from him to Andrew and back, and then obeys. The crinkle in his nose is comical, as is the coughing fit he falls into after he swallows.

“It’s a restorative,” Aaron provides. “Disgusting but effective.”

“That’s the real Fox motto,” Neil croaks, and coughs again.

It’s strange to see them almost civil with one another, and stranger still to think that it’s because of him. Andrew pushes himself to the edge of the bed and swings his legs over. Rather than standing, he slides down to sit on the ground. Neil jerks like he plans to catch Andrew, but stops when he realises Andrew’s intention.

Even with a layer of concrete between him and the earth, the proximity feeds Andrew. He takes a few moments to breathe, taking it in.

“You knew him,” Neil says. “That man.”

It’s pretty clear who he means. Andrew tells him, “Drake Spear.”

This evidently means nothing to Neil, but on the other side of the room Aaron drops a glass beaker on the floor. It smashes and he swears, though not at the fragments of glass he just sprayed across the tiles.

He turns on Andrew. “Spear?”

Andrew lets his silent look serve as his answer.

Neil glances back and forth between the two of them. “Who?”

“He was my brother,” Andrew says, and smiles.

 


	3. we kissed and killed each other

It happened like this:

Tilda Minyard was human, and she had two babies. One, she gave away. One, she kept.

The one who stayed grew up with neglect and abuse in the face of his burgeoning, untrained magic. Tilda was from a religious family. She could only hate the child who could make flowers bloom by touching them, and who could make it rain with a dance. Of course, she already couldn’t stand Aaron because he was so inconvenient, but the magic really didn’t help.

The other grew up in a succession of foster homes, each as bad as the last, right up until Cass Spear took him in .

Cass was a hedgewitch, capable of only small magics. Her witch son Drake was different, and he recognised what he could take from Andrew if he played his cards right. Besides, of course, Andrew’s body.

Except magic like Andrew’s can’t be kept secret forever. Eventually he fell into the hands of Oakland’s local coven, and then was reunited with his blood brother, and then dealt with Tilda the only way he was ever taught how. Then came Nicky. Then came the Council, and his fetters.

The story should end here and now. Somehow, Andrew doubts it will be quite that easy. He wouldn’t be a witch if he didn’t believe in things coming full circle.

 

* * *

 

He’s not wrong.

When they emerge from the room one at a time, the rest of the Foxes are there waiting. So is Abby, all in white. She looks exceptionally grim.

Wymack looks each of the three of them up and down, and then turns to Abby. “Well, here they are. Spit it out.”

She doesn’t even bother to look at Wymack, despite his pissy tone. “Aaron, you have been summoned before the Council.”

Across the room, Nicky goes white. “No, no, no-”

“Sh, Nicky,” Renee says. “It’ll be okay.”

It won’t be okay. Andrew can feel the pressure of a broken promise pressing like a band around his forehead.

Dan is looking at Nicky’s stricken face, her mouth turned down into a frown. “What can they do to him? I mean, I know he - but it was in defense of Andrew, right?”

“You think that will matter to them?” It takes Andrew a moment to realise that he just spoke aloud, his voice precise and cold. “You know what he is. You know what they do to people like us.”

“They’ll bind him, too,” Kevin says quietly. “The Council doesn’t look kindly on losses of control from elementals.”

Andrew has worked very, very hard to keep Aaron out of the Council’s reach. If they can clap shackles on another elemental they’ll do it in a heartbeat, and all of that work will be for nothing.

“What can we do to stop them?” Matt asks, brow furrowed.

“Nothing,” Neil says baldly. “The Council favours old bloods - they’re traditional. Kevin is our best chance of swaying them.”

Kevin says, “I can’t go there.”

There’s fear heavy in his voice. He doesn’t want to go in front of the Council because it’ll draw their attention. Perhaps he thinks that they will send him back to the Ravens. Or worse, the Crows.

“Can’t you?” Neil asks, bladed. “Or is that ‘won’t’?”

“I can’t,” Kevin repeats. He looks desperate.

“I don’t want him there,” Aaron snarls suddenly. “You think he’ll make any difference even if he’s not too terrified to talk? He won’t.”

“Then don’t go,” Nicky says, just as desperate.

“I’m going,” Aaron says. “The rest of you can choke.”

“Andrew and Neil need to go as witnesses for you,” Abby says soothingly.

“Two indentured Fox witches? I’m sure they’ll be considered completely reliable witnesses,” Aaron snaps. He’s never coped well with being soothed.

“I’m going,” Andrew says. “Neil is staying with Kevin. Isn’t he?”

“I suppose so,” Neil replies. There’s a thin trace of amusement in his voice.

Aaron turns to Andrew. He’s angry, swollen with it, making the air stink of rich green growth like a jungle, but it’s not for Andrew at all. He says, “Stay.”

Andrew replies, “I promised. Remember?”

 

* * *

 

The two of them go together, with Wymack and Abby. Nicky begs to be allowed, but unsurprisingly, he isn’t.

Wymack pauses for a moment after they park outside of the Sanctuary entrance, the engine still idling and both his hands still on the wheel. He flicks Andrew a look in the mirror, blows out his breath, and then turns the car off.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he recommends.

“Too little too late,” Aaron says, and slams the car door behind him. Andrew follows silently. By the time Wymack and Abby get out of the car, Aaron is nearly at the door with Andrew three steps behind him.

It’s both alike and unlike their more standard trips to the Sanctuary. The main difference is that there are a group of black clad witches waiting for them down in the Atrium - their escort. They bristle with magic, falling in around the four of them. Aaron watches them with flat, unimpressed eyes.

They’re practically marched through the Sanctuary, through the common areas and into the more private ones. The only way it’s unlike Andrew’s last visit is that Nicky isn’t there while Wymack is, and no one is cuffed with the magic-restraining, fae-forged metal the Council likes to use on the dangerous. Wymack frowns around them, anyway - he probably expects better treatment for his Foxes. He’s the only one who ever does.

“If we were humans, this wouldn’t happen,” he mutters.

“But we’re not,” Aaron replies.

“We’re people,” Wymack says. “It shouldn’t come to this.”

“It was always going to come to this,” Andrew says, earning looks not just from the two of them but from their escort, too. They’re jumpy - perhaps they would prefer someone in chains. Andrew thinks he can guess which of them they have in mind.

“It’s not over yet,” Wymack says. He probably genuinely believes that, too.

They reach the doors of the Council Chamber then, tall wooden things with a great knocker inset in one. One of their escort party - one with a black Raven-style tattoo on his check - reaches up and taps it with two knuckles, just once. After a moment, the doors swing open, almost silently. Abby is the first to step through them, after casting what is probably meant to be a bolstering look at Aaron and Andrew.

“Aaron Minyard, Fox Coven,” she announces to the room at large. Her voice rings in the space.

The Council are arrayed out like something out of an old-fashioned courtroom - it’s fitting, considering that in their society they serve as judge, jury, and executioner.

Aaron steps forward into the centre of the floor. Andrew remembers standing in the same place vividly, remembers dripping blood from a split lip on the tiles under Aaron’s feet. Above them the ceiling is carved and painted, domed up to a light right at the very top. Of course, it’s magic, not sunlight. Andrew can feel it.

There are some familiar faces amongst the Council. Betsy Dobson, of course, who was Andrew’s sole supporter in his trial. Jeremy Knox, Kevin’s crush and the leader of Wyvern Coven from California. And, of course, Kengo Moriyama of the Raven Coven, stern-faced.

“Aaron Minyard,” Kengo says. His voice is clipped. “I presume these are your witnesses?”

“Yes,” Aaron replies, equally short.

“Seeing as the victim is obviously unable to speak, we ask that you give your account of what happened under oath,” Kengo says.

“Fine,” is the terse reply.

“Are you sure? You know the results of lying under oath?” That’s someone else - Charles DeWittier, Andrew thinks.

“I’ll die,” Aaron says. His voice is a little dry. “Horribly.”

“Then you agree?”

“Obviously.”

Aaron can’t lie anyway, not that anyone on the Council would take his word for it. DeWittier says, “Then close your eyes.”

The spell that falls down upon him is bright like a skein of stars, dropping across Aaron’s brow and shoulders before melting to nothing except for a thin bright gold band on his right wrist. Aaron blinks his eyes open when the light fades.

“Let’s begin,” Kengo says.

Aaron tells his story. Andrew does the same afterwards, though they don’t make him speak under oath. Either they don’t think he would lie, or they think that as a bound witch he would lie just for the purpose of dying.

There’s a particular thrill of discomfort that goes through the crowd when Andrew tells them where he met Drake before this. Andrew doesn’t enjoy it because he doesn’t enjoy anything, but there’s a particular kind of satisfaction to be found in it. Not least because most of these people were present at his trial, where no one bothered to ask where he came from.

After the two of them, one of their escorts - the Raven - is asked to speak. He apparently examined the ‘scene’, as they put it, like they’ve watched too many human procedural shows. He’s quite poetic when he describes the blood, but not nearly so talkative when it comes to the remnants of the interrupted spell.

Andrew hasn’t ever expected fairness from these people and their games, so it isn’t surprising.

Besides them, there’s a sad lack of evidence for either side, or at least there is if you don’t consider the oath-sworn truth from Aaron reliable enough.

That means it isn’t surprising when Kengo says, “I think it’s obvious what the only option is here.”

“What are you suggesting?” someone asks from further back.

“He should be collared,” Kengo replies.

There is a very quiet and ordered uproar as people talk to their neighbours in the stand.

“You can’t be serious, Kengo,” Betsy says directly after, picking her moment so her voice sounds bell-clear over the murmuring chaos. “That is not an appropriate punishment for an individual protecting his brother against a spell that would have stolen his magic and then killed him.”

Betsy has always had a way of leaping straight to the heart of the matter.

“Of course I’m serious,” Kengo replies. “Do any of you have a better option?”

“I’m inclined to agree with Betsy,” Knox says, overfamiliar but somehow pulling it off. “Are we robbing everyone of their self-determination now when they act in their own defense? In the defense of others?”

“And what do you suggest we do with people who are clearly dangerous? Just allow them to run free in society and murder people?”

“How old are you, Aaron?” Knox asks.

“Twenty,” Aaron replies, after a pause. “I’m twenty.”

Knox gestures to him like this proves a point. When there’s silence in response, he elaborates, “The child has been ‘running free in society’ for twenty years without murdering anyone. Why is your first thought making a slave of him when he kills a man committing a heinous crime against his brother?”

“They aren’t slaves,” Pierce snaps.

“Aren’t they?” Knox smiles. It isn’t reassuring. “My mistake.”

“This isn’t a question on the practice, at any rate,” DeWittier cuts in. “This is about Minyard in particular.”

“As far as I’m concerned, blood runs true to blood,” Kengo says. “The brother was collared, and rightly so. Do the same with this one, and hand him over to a coven who can actually manage him. Strip the Fox Coven of the other while you’re at it.”

_Manage him._ Like they’re poorly mannered livestock.

“That’s not fair.”

Everyone goes quiet. They all look to Aaron, who looks surprised at his own courage but also angry enough to be unafraid.

“That’s not fair,” he repeats.

“You can’t speak whenever you like here,” someone says, wildly offended.

“Let him talk.” That’s Betsy, quiet, all power. No one else dares to speak, Aaron included. She smiles down at him. “Go on, Aaron.”

“I came from nothing,” Aaron says. He flicks a glance to Andrew. “We both did. Our mother was human. We lived in that world for fifteen years, and when we found out we were witches, no one wanted us. No one except for the Foxes. It’s not fair that you want to take us away and put us both in collars now because we’re powerful.”

“It’s not because you’re powerful. It’s because you’re a killer,” Kengo says, keen-eyed but frowning politely.

“Then how many of you should be wearing them too?” Aaron demands. “No one with blood on their hands has any right to judge me. Or my brother.”

“Do you think the Council made the correct decision with your twin?” Knox asks, seemingly out of genuine curiosity.

“No,” Aaron replies. “You did what some members suggested and didn’t care that it was because they wanted to harness his power for themselves. You can say what you like about him being a killer, and me. But no one here is under any illusion that that’s what this is about.”

Every eye turns to Andrew. He barely feels the weight of their attention, too busy watching Aaron. He’s staring straight ahead at nothing.

They cannot lie. _No_.

“Andrew?” Betsy asks gently. “What’s your opinion on that?”

“I don’t care,” Andrew says bluntly. “But if you try to shackle him, I’ll bring the ceiling down around your ears.”

There’s an uproar. DeWittier, red-faced, says over top of it, “ _You can’t threaten us_.”

“It’s not a threat.” It’s a promise.

There’s only a few silent people in the crowd. Kengo looks unfazed, his dark gaze fixed on Andrew and inscrutable. Knox looks unbothered, perhaps a little amused. Betsy is silent and smiling. If Andrew needs to, he’ll pull this place down stone by stone and let it fall onto every last one of them, spread all their precious old-days blood out on the floor to see if the magic really makes it any prettier than his.

“You can’t propose to set the other free,” someone in the back row says. It seems their concentration has shifted from Aaron again. Andrew doesn’t have a problem with that. He has always been the problem that bites.

“I believe he has a name,” Betsy says, a gentle rebuke that carries. “And no. That would be a death sentence. I’m sure the Council remembers that we don’t deal those out to children with occasionally dubious control.”

There’s a shamed silence. Betsy is very manipulative for a woman who smiles like that, kind and crinkled about the eyes.

“We’re here because of Aaron Minyard,” Knox reminds them all. “Andrew has been punished according to the ruling of this council, and is here as a witness, not the guilty party.”

He’s prevented from going on by a brisk knocking.

Down the far end of the hall, the door opens to admit a very familiar figure. Kevin Day is calm-faced - past fear, perhaps. He strides along the floor like he belongs here, like he isn’t intruding on a private Council sitting, and sinks into a gallant bow when he draws level in the centre of floor.

“Councillors, please forgive my interruption,” he says. There’s a quiet charm in his serious face and old-fashioned speech, and it reminds Andrew that this is the only old blood that he doesn’t want to kill. Sometimes.

“Kevin Day,” Kengo says, cool as ever. Off to the side, Knox is grinning crookedly. “To what do we owe your presence?”

“I’m here for Aaron Minyard,” Kevin replies. “I hope you’ll give me an opportunity to speak on his behalf.”

“Were you present for the events in question? The murder of Drake Spear?” DeWittier asks, leaning forward.

“I was there when we realised Andrew was missing,” Kevin says. “I helped to find him, and brought him back.”

This shining son of the Council has them nodding along with him as he tells them about how they tracked Andrew down, how Kevin called for help afterwards. He says such nice things about Andrew and Aaron both. It’s lucky they didn’t make him speak under oath.

Kengo thanks him when he’s done. He looks just a touch sour about it, though it’s hard to pick it out on his ascetic face. “We will vote.”

It seems faintly ridiculous that they vote by raising their hands. It feels like they should use magic instead. DeWittier says, “All those in favour of punishing Aaron Minyard, raise your hand.”

Unsurprisingly, Kengo raises his hand. He looks at Andrew as he does, and Andrew wonders whether it’s meant to be a dare. He turned down Riko and the Crows, not the Ravens themselves, but that doesn’t mean that Kengo didn’t want him on a leash for himself, or Aaron for that matter.

A few others do, too. Pierce, in his stiff grey tweed jacket, longing to take them back to the bad old days of British witch slavery. Maura Decouvere, who is always in favour of harsh punishments for those who spill blood. Some up in the back where the lights aren’t quite so good, their faces shadowed.

“All those in favour of releasing Aaron Minyard without punishment, raise your hand.”

It’s a clear majority. DeWittier says, “Thank you, Councillors,” before turning back to the rest of them on the floor. “Aaron, you are free to go.”

They turn as one to leave, Kevin first then Andrew then Aaron last. They don’t get an escort on the way out. When the doors open for them, Wymack is pacing back and forth on the other side. He spins to look at them, and deflates a little at the sight of Aaron looking just the same along with them.

They don’t get a chance to leave before the doors open again to let the Council itself out. Most of them stream past without sparing the cluster of Foxes a glance. Some of them pause when they see Kevin, their eyes glinting covetously. Perhaps they think that they, like the Foxes, might be able to tempt him away.

It’s Jeremy Knox who pauses by Andrew, smiling at him. His eyes are yellowish in the light, strange against his dark skin.

“Hello, cousin,” he says.

Andrew feels a trickle of tension down his spine. “I wasn’t aware we were related.”

“Mm. Distantly,” Knox replies. “Well done.”

“For?”

“Securing the young Crow mage. Well, I should say Fox, I suppose,” he says. “It’s a proper coup for your Coven.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Andrew says.

“Oh, come now. Neither of us are liars.” Knox is an earth witch of a sort, though Andrew doesn’t know the precise kind he is. He doesn’t need to. “I don’t recognise the look of you, though. Spring Court? Autumn?”

Andrew goes to repeat himself - _I don’t know what you’re talking about -_ but the words stick on the back of his tongue. He isn’t a liar. It comes out, “I don’t know.”

“Hm,” Knox says. “I’m glad you’ve found a place here. It can be difficult for our kind.”

“Our kind?” Kevin asks, appearing at either precisely the wrong moment or precisely the right one, depending on who you ask. Andrew isn’t even sure which it is.

Knox waves a hand. “Oh, just, you know,” he says, good-natured, which is the worst cover Andrew has ever heard. Kevin swallows it anyway, nodding seriously.

“I might have someone for your coven,” Kevin says. He looks cagey. “I can’t confirm anything, but I need to know whether you can take them.”

“We have space, I’m sure,”Knox says. His voice is easy, but the intensity in his eyes belies that. He isn’t the airhead he plays at being, that much is abundantly clear. “What kind of witch?”

“An air elemental,” Kevin says. It’s a giveaway to anyone who knows him. “Powerful.”

Knox smiles. He knows, too. “Of course. Stay in touch and we can arrange something.”

Andrew turns away. It’s the day for dealing with collared mages in Kevin Day’s world, apparently.

 

* * *

 

When they get back to the Tower, everyone is waiting for them. It’s almost interesting to see the sick look of relief on the faces of people who Andrew would swear barely gave a damn about Aaron - but then, they are the soft type.

Wymack hustles everyone out fairly quickly - besides Andrew’s lot. That means Neil sticks around, quiet but still an unignorable presence.

“I’m going to bed,” Aaron says, and then leaves. Nicky, after a moment and a glance at the rest of them, follows.

“Andrew,” Kevin begins, once it’s just the three of them alone.

Andrew has no idea what Kevin is going to say, but he doesn’t care to listen. “No.”

“...Fine,” Kevin says after a moment. Then he leaves as well.

Neil doesn’t leave. Andrew dearly wishes that he would. He’s a presence that Andrew just can’t get rid of, and can’t get out of his head. He’s also the reason that Kevin walked into the trial. He’s probably, at this point, half the reason Kevin is still here at all.

“You’re welcome,” Neil says. He means it unironically, though the twist of humour in his voice means he recognises the stupidity of this situation.

Andrew hates him.

 

* * *

 

To celebrate the fact that Aaron isn’t going to be chained to the Foxes - or anyone else - for the rest of his life, they go back to Eden’s Twilight.

Everyone there has heard the news. Aaron is greeted with bro-hugs and fist bumps, and Andrew is left alone, which is precisely the way he prefers it.

Roland gives him a look of barely-disguised understanding when they arrive at the bar, which Andrew ignores. It’s misplaced. They think they know something about Andrew now, but they have no idea.

Nicky gets so drunk he can barely stand up straight. He’s giving off a tracery of pleasant drunkenness to the people around them, but Andrew, who is used to ignoring it and so used to how it feels, can pick up the grief underneath it.

Nicky is nothing like Aaron and Andrew. It takes a different kind of strength to come from where he has and end up softer rather than steel. It’s a strength infected by the stupidity of still reaching out to the people - his parents - who will do nothing but disappoint him, but even Andrew hasn’t entirely killed that urge.

The proof of that sits at the table around him, minor irritations. He doesn’t think he could have explained to himself the deal he made with Aaron at sixteen, and it was only a little clearer when he offered Kevin the same kind of promise. Now, he knows why. It’s just not something he likes to think about much.

He’s known since he was a little kid that if he made a mistake, he would be sent away - it’s a known consequence, one that has worked both for and against him. It’s only since he was sixteen that he’s had to face the other reality: you don’t have to be sent away when you fuck up. Other people can just leave you.

Kevin seems angry at Neil for something, although it’s not at all obvious what. Neither of them are usually chatty, but they’re outdoing themselves in terms of the silent treatment right now. Andrew suspects it has to do with whatever Neil said to make Kevin come before the Council. Not least because Kevin had refused to get in the car Neil had driven him over to the Sanctuary in, falling into Wymack’s with the rest of them.

As drunk as Nicky is, Kevin for once doesn’t seem interested in matching him. He’s thoughtful and serious, glancing every so often at Andrew and Aaron both when he dares look away from the crowds. Andrew is used to Kevin’s scrutiny, but it clearly irritates Aaron. He meets Kevin’s eyes once when he catches him at it and snarls, “Stop that.”

Aaron has always lived walking the line of wanting - craving - attention, and knowing that he shouldn’t, because it’s a danger to him. He’s never been interested in Kevin’s regard, though, and right now he looks like he might try to break Kevin’s nose.

“Relax!” Nicky chirps, slinging a sloppy arm over Aaron’s shoulders and jostling him. “We’re celebrating!”

“Yeah,” Aaron replies, pushing him away. “Celebrating that Kevin can sometimes fix his own mistakes.”

“Noooo,” Nicky draws out. “Hey, come dance with me.”

He’s not drunk enough to be oblivious to where this is going. Aaron ignores him to snarl, “Don’t forget that.”

Kevin looks taken aback. Aaron, of all of them, is usually the most deferential, the one most inclined to put up with Kevin for the sake of improvement. Kevin still nods seriously though.

“I won’t,” he says.

“They’re corrupt to the core and you know it better than anyone, but you still played nice with them,” Aaron says. Apparently he would have preferred Andrew’s methodology of mass murder.

“I had to.”

“Maybe,” Aaron says. “Or maybe it was just the quickest way to get what you wanted. Either way, it won’t be like that forever.”

“It worked. You’re still free.” Kevin looks like he doesn’t know what Aaron’s problem is.

“Not everyone is though,” Aaron replies. “Nicky. We’re going.”

“Okay?” Nicky says, but lets Aaron drag him towards the dancefloor quite happily. Kevin stares after them.

“I didn’t think he,” Kevin says, and then shakes his head.

“It turns out he has a bit of thing about slavery,” Neil says. “Who would have thought?”

Andrew ignores that.

 

* * *

 

Andrew doesn’t look up when someone comes into the room and closes the door behind him. Kevin is out in the lounge making Neil practice some incantation, so Andrew has retreated into the bedroom to smoke through the cracked window.

Aaron doesn’t speak though. It’s not until Andrew looks at him that he opens his mouth.

“I’m not going to thank you,” he says, “For what you did.”

“What did I do this time?” Andrew asks. He’s more than used to taking the blame from Aaron, not to mention for him.

“You killed her,” Aaron replies. “My mother.”

He doesn’t say _our mother_ , which is a good choice.

“I told you I would protect you,” Andrew tells him. “I kept that promise. It’s not my fault that you didn’t believe me.”

“I understand that now,” Aaron says, although it’s cool. “But I won’t thank you.”

“I don’t want your gratitude,” Andrew tells him. “I won’t thank you for killing Drake, either.”

“I didn’t think you would,” he replies. “I would do it over again and I don’t particularly care how you feel about it.”

“We understand each other, then,” Andrew says. It’s perhaps the first time that’s happened, and it might be the last.

He thinks that might be the end of it. Instead, Aaron sighs, and then says, jagged, “I meant what I said. I don’t think the Council did right by you.”

“So did I.” _If you try to bind him, I’ll bring the ceiling down around your ears._

“I’m seeing someone,” Aaron says. “A human, one who knows about our kind. Her name is Katelyn.”

“I’m sure you’ll be very happy together,” Andrew tells him. He hasn’t been completely oblivious to Aaron’s little distraction, and he doesn’t much care. Their promise meant that Aaron would stay close. It has never precluded him from having someone else, though his personality has so far been doing the job of keeping people away well. But it’ll take more than a determined human girl to pull Aaron away, as long as the Council has his name on their ledger.

“I’m sure you’ll be happy with him, too,” Aaron says.

Their connection goes both ways. And Aaron, despite everything, has never been stupid.

“Be careful of him,” Aaron says, sneering. “ _Wesninski_. Because if you aren’t, he’s going to get you killed.”

 

* * *

 

Andrew needs to go to the greenhouse, which means he has to take Kevin. He’s just turned the key in the ignition of the car when the back door pops open and Neil slides in.

“Apparently you need another person with you,” he says, “After what happened last time.”

“So they sent you?” Andrew asks boredly, and drives.

The wards Andrew and Aaron laid on the greenhouse are still exactly as they were left, pulsing gently when Andrew presses into them. Andrew lowers them with a whisper of Aaron’s magic pulled between them alongside his own.

“I’ll wait out here,” Kevin says, casting a distrustful look at the riot of plants through the half-open door. Andrew accepts that without a word - the plants would be looking back at Kevin with the same expression if they could - and ignores the pad of footsteps as Neil follows him inside.

Aaron’s watering spell is going off of its own accord, miniature dark clouds raining over the raised beds and into pots. Neil prods at one with a finger, and it immediately darkens and flashes with internal lightning.

The front room is fine, the plants welcoming but clearly also perfectly happy in his absence. Andrew moves through to the orchid room, checking them over before going through to Aaron’s workspace.

The ingredients Aaron needs are stacked and carefully labelled on the far wall. Andrew pulls a stool from under the bench and grabs the ones he wants, tucking them into a bag hanging over his shoulder. He says without looking, “Don’t touch that.”

Neil pauses. He’d been about to lay a hand on the castor oil plant growing in a pot on the bench. “Why?”

“Because it’s highly poisonous,” Andrew says. “Ingestion of a single seed leads to an agonising and unstoppable death over the course of a few days.”

“I’m surprised you aren’t telling me to go ahead then,” Neil mutters, and then says, “Why keep it around, if it’s dangerous?”

“Castor oil is used for various healing tisanes applied to the skin,” Andrew replies.

“How did you learn about plants?”

Andrew considers saying _they talked to me_ , but chooses instead, “Books.”

“You never had anyone to teach you.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“Neither did you, unless you count the many ways in which you can electrocute someone to death.”

“Not just that,” Neil says. “She taught me about bindings, too.”

Andrew knew there was a point to this visit. He waits for Neil to continue, pushing a packet of dried Belladonna berries into the satchel.

“My mother was certain there had to be a way to release me from the binding spell my father put on me. She never found one, but she did find a way the binding could be sealed while we were in France.”

Andrew hops down from the stool, looking at Neil. He’s leaning against the bench, hands in his pockets, gaze introspective. Andrew says, “Why didn’t she use it on you?”

“Because it requires two bound mages sealing their magic together permanently, and there was no one else with a collar on that we knew, let alone who we could trust.”

“Then why are you telling me about it?”

“Because I figured you’d be interested in knowing that even if Aaron was bound by the Council, there would have been a way out of it.”

Andrew imagines the two of them being stuck together in the same way he’s bound to the Fox Coven in it’s entirety. It’s not a pretty picture. Aaron resents the way their magic pulls them together as it is.

“You might have both been killed, too, of course,” Neil says, and then shrugs philosophically. “It was more of a theory than hard fact. I just thought you would find it interesting.”

“I’m not interested in magical theory,” Andrew tells him. “I’m done here.”

“Andrew,” Neil say, putting out an arm to stop him from leaving. He doesn’t touch Andrew. Andrew pauses with an inch between that arm and him, at his belly height. “Can I ask you a question?”

“It isn’t your turn.”

He watches Neil blink, and then readjust. “Are you going to take yours, then?”

He’s silent long enough that Neil says, “You don’t have to.”

“I know I don’t,” Andrew replies. “Why did you send Kevin to the Council?”

Neil’s face creases. “Isn’t it obvious?”

It’s a stupid question. Andrew doesn’t deign to answer. Eventually Neil says, “I knew they would listen to him. I couldn’t say the same about either of you.”

“So you care about Aaron now?” It’s not like Andrew hasn’t noticed that the two of them hate each other.

“Not really,” Neil says, unashamed. “But I know what you would do for him.”

“And what’s that?” Andrew really wants to hear what he’s going to say.

“The same as you would do for me or Kevin, or anyone you make a promise to,” Neil replies without a pause. “Anything. Including die.”

Andrew is unimpressed. “I suppose that would be inconvenient seeing as you want to die first.”

“I don’t want to die,” Neil corrects. “It’s just that it’s sometimes the better end of the deal. I think you know that.”

His eyes, pointedly, flicker down to Andrew’s forearms where underneath black cloth there are layers of scars. Ah, Andrew thinks. He was unconscious in Neil’s company for a while. He doesn’t think he’s slipped up any other way. It doesn’t matter, anyway, because Neil isn’t the kind to talk, and even if he did those scars are old now.

“Answer a question for me,” Andrew says. “Do I look dead to you?”

“No more than I do,” Neil replies. “That’s why I know we understand each other.”

Andrew looks at him, and then says, “Kevin is waiting.”

“He can wait. I still have a question, and now it’s definitely my turn.”

Andrew waves at him to go on. After a moment Neil asks, “The others act like you’re unreasonable. Like you refuse to do things just for the hell of it. But when I ask you something you always answer. What makes me different?”

Andrew’s brain clicks to a stop and then restarts. It’s not often he’s surprised, but that - that manages it. He says, “I do refuse to do things just for the hell of it.”

“You refuse to do things because people demand them of you,” Neil corrects. “Also, that’s not an answer.”

He’s just effectively answered his own question, for all he’s too stupid to realise as much. That’s the only reason Andrew really has for what he says, which is; “You’re different because I find you attractive.”

Neil blinks. “What?”

“You heard me,” Andrew says.

“That’s not a reason.”

“Maybe not to a man who doesn’t swing.”

“You like me?” Neil asks. His face is scrunched with confusion.

“I hate you,” Andrew corrects. And if that isn’t the truth, he doesn’t know what is. “Nothing will ever come of it. I’m not that stupid.”

“Okay,” Neil says after a moment. He steps back at last, making room for Andrew to go around him. He still, as ever, leaves Andrew plenty of space.

 

* * *

 

They have to go to another banquet at the Sanctuary. This time it’s Aaron who is falteringly asked if he’d prefer to stay. He says, “Don’t be ridiculous,” like he’s bored of it all.

Kevin, meanwhile, is a shaking mess on the way there. He won’t get out of the car when they arrive, so Andrew orders the others out and waits for Wymack to come over.

Their leader opens the passenger side door and crouches down outside, his bulk blocking out the light. He puts a bottle of vodka into Kevin’s trembling hands and says, “You have a minute to drink as much of that as you can.”

Kevin goes for it like he’s going to break his own record. Wymack has to pry the bottle from his fingers after the minute is up.

“Remember he can’t do anything to you that you don’t let him,” Wymack says, clapping him on the shoulder once in a fatherly manner before he straightens up. “Now, get out of the goddamned car.”

Down in the Sanctuary, they’re well away from the Crows and the Ravens. Once again, Nathan Wesninski isn’t in attendance, Andrew notes. They’re placed with the Wyvern Coven, headed by Jeremy Knox, who grins at the sight of them. They’re not following the usual old blood set up, with Knox in the middle of the table on one side, so the Foxes do the same, with Kevin and Dan in the middle facing him.

“It’s good to see you in better circumstances,” Knox tells Kevin, and then stands to offer Dan a firm handshake. “Hello. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Kevin talks about you often.”

Dan grins as she shakes his hand. “I hate to think what he says.”

“Nothing but praise,” Knox replies, “Well, Kevin’s version of it. These ladies are Sara Alvarez and Laila Dermott.”

“Hello,” Dermott says. She’s cool-eyed as a queen, Knox’s second. Alvarez offers a smile and a jaunty wave. The two of them are normal witches, and they make Knox look startlingly other between them.

Knox turns to Andrew where he sits on Kevin’s other side. He’s grinning. “Hello again.”

Andrew looks back at him for a moment, but doesn’t otherwise reply. Knox’s grin grows before he shifts his attention over another seat to Neil. “It’s Neil, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Neil replies, wary. He’s taking in Knox in his entirety, eyes flickering.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, too,” he says, and then winks. Neil stares back at him blankly. As ever, he’s not exactly a student of Kevin’s school of charm. Knox doesn’t seem bothered by it anyway.

This time there’s no threat of bloodshed over the dinner table, with Dan and Kevin chatting good-naturedly with the Wyverns. Andrew devotes half of his attention to the rise and fall of Kevin’s voice at his side, and the rest to eating his way around the generous serving of red meat on his plate. Real witches seem to have a taste for it, but Andrew has never been a real witch.

After the meal is cleared away, the mingling begins. Andrew half-expects Wymack to sweep the Foxes off then, but he seems to have been lulled into a false sense of security by Wyvern friendliness. He says nothing as Renee and Allison duck off in the direction of the all-female Jackal Coven, nor when Matt and Dan go to collect more drinks. The Wyverns are all breaking up too, casting out towards the other younger covens.

Nicky and Aaron fold back in to Andrew, with Wymack at their backs. He casts an eagle eye over them and says, “Fun. Try and have some of it.”

Nicky grins brightly. “Hey, Aaron, think we can get some of the stick-in-the-muds to dance?”

“If you try I’m leaving,” Aaron says, though it’s more of a token protest than anything else. Wymack watches them go with a trace of amusement curling his mouth. Then he turns back to the three of them leftover.

“Go on, then,” he says. “And stay away from the Crow Coven.”

“Maybe you should tell them to stay away from us,” Andrew says.

“Don’t make me babysit you,” Wymack says. “Go on. Get.”

“Come on,” Knox says, appearing from nowhere at Kevin’s side.

He keeps them tucked in to him, introducing Neil around the little groups of witches. They all know Kevin and greet him warmly, and he responds with his fix-faced smile and a dose of vodka-infused smooth charm. Andrew gets to stand there quietly, largely ignored. The people who don’t ignore him get the message pretty quickly that he’s uninterested in talking when he doesn’t reply to their questions.

They’re curious about him - he can see it on their faces. But he doesn’t smile like Kevin or even like Neil, so it’s tempered, left for later when they can talk about him once he’s gone. That has always been the way Andrew has preferred it.

“You don’t have to stay with us,” Kevin says to Knox eventually, though reluctantly.

“Maybe I just enjoy your company,” Knox grins back. “That said, I do need to go speak to Charles DeWittier. I’m guessing you’d rather not join me.”

“There’s a limited list of Councillors I want anything to do with,” Kevin admits.

“Stay out of trouble,” Knox says with another wink, and then leaves. Neil watches after him thoughtfully.

“Drinks?” Kevin suggests.

“None of us are carrying you out of here if you’re too drunk to walk,” Neil tells him, but follows along obligingly anyway.

Kevin manages to socialise passably without Knox smoothing the way, passed from hand to hand around groups of witches their own age or perhaps a little older. Covens from across the country come to events just like this one to make connections and very occasionally poach people from other covens to their greener pastures. There are some covetous eyes on Kevin, who has already moved once. Neil and Andrew, of course, don’t earn the same looks. They’re not exactly free to leave, or at least aren’t as far as these people know.

“Kevin,” Neil says, when Kevin is being wooed by members of the Catamount Coven.

Kevin stiffens at his side. Andrew looks up in the direction his head has turned, and finds Riko and his lapdog Moreau sweeping through the crowd towards them. Out of reach on the other side of the room, the older Foxes are being waylaid by other Crows, as are Nicky and Aaron. At least Nicky is capable of talking himself out of that particular mess.

“Excuse me,” Kevin says to the Catamounts, his voice strained, and steps away to meet them head on.

Riko stops alongside them. “Kevin. I keep expecting to open the door at Evermore and find you waiting to be let in like a dog that’s run off.”

Kevin stares back at him, stark. “I’m not coming back.”

Riko reaches out and catches his chin, holding him so their eyes meet. “That’s fine. You know I’ll come for you sooner or later.”

“Hey, Riko,” Andrew says. It doesn’t come out quite like the tease he’s aiming for, the light-voiced threat - it’s the knife at Riko’s spine that does that for him. “Don’t touch my things.”

Whatever you want to say about Riko, he understands that Andrew can and will carve his back off, closely followed by the bisection of his throat as a mercy stroke. He lets go of Kevin but doesn’t step back into Andrew’s space.

“And Minyard,” Riko says, faux-amused. “Aren’t you lucky to still be here walking around, almost free. I hear you threatened the Council.”

“Yeah, they’re apparently frightened of what one lone witch will do these days,” Neil says. Andrew steps back and makes the knife disappear.

“What do you want, Riko?” Kevin asks quietly.

“I want to speak to Nathaniel,” Riko say. “Alone.”

Kevin says, “No.”

“It’s fine, Kevin,” Neil says distractedly. He hasn’t looked away from Riko yet. “You and Andrew can go get drinks.”

Kevin looks between him and Andrew helplessly, but after a moment says, “Okay.” Andrew follows him to the drinks table, which is in sight but just barely out of earshot. Riko and Neil make a strange pair, almost of a height, one dark-haired and proud, the other pale-eyed and faking his arrogance.

They’re both defensive. Riko smiles cold, like a shark. And Neil, who Andrew has seen smile only rarely, is grinning in return. There’s not a single trace of warmth in his face, either. Andrew hadn’t recognised that in him until now, when all of it is gone.

Moreau, who has followed them, raps something out in a language it takes Andrew a moment to recognise as French. Kevin, after a moment, replies in kind.

They’re focussed on each other. Andrew uses the moment to observe Moreau. He’s standing awkwardly, like he’s hurt and trying to avoid hurting himself further. He’s also thinner than he was last time Andrew saw him, his face pared down to the hard angled lines in his jaw and cheekbones. He looks a little feverish. Burned out.

In another life where Andrew is either more driven or less smart, he would probably look like that too. If he wasn’t dead already.

Moreau senses Andrew’s eyes on him, breaking off from his conversation with Kevin to demand, “What?”

Andrew smiles. “Nothing at all. Drink?”

“I don’t drink,” Moreau replies.

“You look like you could use one,” Andrew tells him, pouring one for himself and then shoving another into Kevin’s hand. He’s gone back to watching Neil like an anxious mother, biting his lip.

“I shouldn’t have left him,” he mutters.

“He’s more than capable of talking Riko in circles,” Andrew notes. The punch is sickly-sweet and not spiked enough to make it worth drinking.

Kevin levels a look at him, trying for dry but mostly only succeeding to look wild eyed. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

The rules of the Sanctuary aren’t that you can’t do magic. It’s that if you turn that magic on someone else, that magic will be turned back on you threefold. That means that when Andrew feels the air crackle - literally - he’s already moving.

Neil’s hands are clenched at his sides. Riko is saying something to him, mouth curled, gleeful like he’s pushing for an explosion.

“-You really should have considered that,” he’s saying when Andrew gets close enough to hear it.

“Fuck you,” Neil replies, and then punches Riko in the face.

The both of them are witches, born and raised. That means it’s a terrible punch, but that Riko goes down like a pile of bricks anyway. Neil goes after him a second time while he’s on the floor, takes a hit to the belly that drives him back, and then Andrew has him by the back of his neck.

Neil is hot and jumping in his grip, his heart pounding hard enough Andrew can feel it. Riko, pushed up onto an elbow, his lip bleeding where Neil has split it, says, “Minyard. We were just talking about you.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Neil snarls.

“Don’t bother to be careful, Nathaniel,” Riko tells him, a parody of the last time they were face to face. “It’s already too late for that.” He wipes the blood off of his chin, pushing himself up from the ground.

“What the hell is going on here?” Wymack demands from Andrew’s left. He has Kevin with him, pinch-faced. Andrew basically passes Neil into their possession, and Wymack takes over his grip on Neil’s scruff.

“Just a difference of opinion,” Riko says, smiling. “Though you would think someone of his kind would be better behaved.”

Wymack stares back at him, unimpressed. “I’m sure _you_ would, certainly.”

Tetsuji Moriyama appears then, grabbing Riko’s face in a firm hand and turning it to examine him. “What is the meaning of this?”

Wymack is evidently no fan of Tetsuji, but he does well to keep that schooled off of his expression. “I’m sure you can imagine it wasn’t unprovoked, Moriyama. You keep yours away from mine and I’ll do the same.”

Tetsuji looks like he wants to say something else, but instead he replies with a curt nod before turning away. Riko sends Neil one last look, still smiling, before he follows.

“What the hell was that about?” Wymack asks Neil in a lower voice, less abrasive. He doesn’t get a reply from the man still boiling in his grip, staring after Riko like he wishes that looks alone could kill. Even a gentle shake from Wymack doesn’t distract him.

“That was a terrible punch,” Andrew says, making Neil jerk his eyes away and to him. His eyes are silvery, but after a second the mist in them breaks apart to blue.

Wymack huffs a sigh, and then turns, towing Neil with him towards the entrance hall. The other Foxes fall in alongside them on the way.

Outside it’s quieter. Matt flicks a look at the curious people peering through from the main hall and flicks his fingers, raising a ward like a sound-proof bubble over top of them. He says, “What happened?”

“Neil just punched Riko in the face,” Nicky chirps. “It was beautiful.”

Wymack forestalls anyone from cheering by demanding, “Neil. Why?”

Neil looks at Andrew again. Before he opens his mouth, Andrew knows what he’s going to say.

It’s, “He sent Drake Spear here.”

 

* * *

 

No one talks to Andrew about it, afterwards. That’s fine.

They leave straight away, because Aaron says, “I’m going to kill him,” with eyes blank as marble and they really can’t afford a second run-in with the Council so soon after the first. The car is silent on the way back to the Tower, and none of them can avoid feeling Nicky’s dismay, his control wavering until Kevin snaps, “Get a grip,” at him.

After that, the entire car is a dead zone of emotion. Nicky is still wet-eyed and tense, but his control is locked down so tight that Andrew feels sixteen again, like stone.

The others gather in the lounge like they’re going to chitchat about the drama. Aaron doesn’t stop, walking around them and out the door on the other side of the room. Neil stops, which makes Kevin pause, which in turn forces Andrew to slow down.

“What are we going to do?” Nicky is the first to ask, helpless.

“You know the answer to that,” Neil is the one to say. Everyone blinks at him. “We haven’t been training like this for nothing.”

The Foxes are more of a wartime coven than most of the others right now. That doesn’t mean they don’t look surprised to have that thrown in their faces for a second. They do at least shut that down fairly quickly.

“Is it enough?” Kevin demands. “Is that enough of a grounds for war against the Crows?”

Neil wheels on him first. “I think you should be answering that question. You’re the reason Riko is here in the first place. Not to mention Drake.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Kevin snaps back. His voice is a snarl. It’s the harshest Andrew has ever heard it. “I’m not prepared to throw this coven into a fight we can’t win.”

“You should have thought of that before you came here,” Neil snarls back. An errant breeze stirs his hair off of his forehead.

“Keep control,” Kevin warns him.

“Maybe it’s time you lose a bit of yours,” Neil replies. “Coward.”

If he’s aiming to make Kevin crack with that, he misses the mark. If anything, he sinks deeper into himself, taking a deep breath. “Do you think that’s the first time I’ve been called that?”

“No,” Neil replies. “But it’s the first time I’ve ever known for sure it’s true.”

He’s not enough of an overdramatic little shit to storm out after that. Instead he stays, and stares a hole in Kevin, his expression a blatant challenge.

“You are powerful,” Kevin says. “But so am I. And if I’m afraid of them, don’t you think you should be?”

“Your fear is learned. It’s about time you unlearned it,” Neil says.

Kevin takes a deep breath and then expels it. He looks like he’s at the end of his rope. “I think we might able to win. But I’m not willing to risk everything on ‘might’ and the opinion of a child with a death wish.”

Neil opens his mouth, but Dan is the first to speak. Her voice is measured, but her dark eyes are intense. “So, do you have faith in us, or don’t you?”

“Faith isn’t enough,” Kevin replies. “We need to be sure. And we need to have a plan.”

“We’re never going to be sure,” Wymack says, crossing his arms. “And faith has gotten us this far. But a plan - a plan we can do.”

 

* * *

 

Andrew doesn’t stick around for much of the planning. It’s not his forte. Also, he gets bored of Dan and Kevin and Neil arguing - while Renee and Matt try to keep the peace and Allison tries to incite violence just for the hell of it - pretty quickly.

Neil is the first back to their shared room. The sky is almost bright on the horizon now, and even though the room is dark he doesn’t bother to flick the overhead light on.

“I think Kevin’s sleeping on Wymack’s couch tonight,” Neil says. “He’s angry with me.”

_I can’t understand why_ , Andrew thinks but doesn’t say. Neil ignores his silence and comes closer, standing at the other side of the window from Andrew. His expression now is contemplative, mostly still. Andrew can only just make it out in the thin light of dawn.

He’s expecting Neil to want to talk about Riko more, but that’s not what comes out of his mouth.

“You never really told me your bloodlines,” he says. “Your mother was human, wasn’t she?”

“As they come.” There was not a trace of magic in Tilda Minyard’s body. “What’s it to you, old blood?”

Neil comes from old lines on both sides, nothing like the ragtag mixture of parentage of Andrew’s lot. He says, “I’m trying to figure you out, remember?”

Andrew takes another drag of his cigarette and doesn’t reply.

“You don’t know your father, do you?” Neil asks, his chin resting in the cup of his own palm. His expression as he watches Andrew is level and attentive, his eyes another level of intensity.

“No.”

“I don’t think anyone does, do they?”

“No one left alive.”

“I don’t think your mother knew the truth either,” Neil muses. “He must have been glamoured, surely.”

He’s figured it out. Andrew tilts his head in the barest sign of agreement, and then says, “How?”

“How do I know? It was Jeremy Knox who made me realise, actually. You and he and Aaron are similar in a way I’ve never encountered, and he’s more obvious than you. The fae influence is pretty clear.”

“His mother was fae, his father old blood. He was raised in their Summer Court,” Andrew says.

“That explains why he’s so weird,” Neil muses, seemingly to himself. “Your eyes - they go gold in the light.”

He’s looking into Andrew’s eyes as he says it. Andrew raises a hand to his jaw and turns his head away, too rough.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says, instead of what he’s thinking, which is _don’t look at me_.

“Like what?” Neil asks.

Andrew doesn’t answer. He realises he hasn’t moved his hand from Neil’s face, but that Neil seems unbothered by it. He’s perfectly content to sit there with his neck twisted awkwardly, staring into the middle distance, with Andrew’s fingertips pressing the blood out of his skin.

When they touch, it’s electric. They’re opposites in elements and as powerful as their kind gets, and there are sparks on skin when they meet in the middle. Neither of them shy away from the mingling of magic.

“You said you wanted me,” Neil says, unmoving besides the shift of his mouth. “I’ve been wondering what that would involve.”

“It doesn’t involve anything,” Andrew says. “I told you, I am not that stupid.”

Neil stays quiet, thoughtful. He doesn’t need to be told why it’s a bad idea. As clueless as he is, that’s more than obvious to anyone with a working frontal lobe.

“You hate me,” Neil says, a statement of fact. “That’s fine, if that’s what you’re worried about. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

There’s a decent chance that this boy who has lived half his life on the run has no idea what he’s offering. There’s something in that - Andrew doesn’t know what. Or he does, but he’d prefer not to think about the pleasure of being someone’s first of anything.

Andrew probably isn’t as smart as he gives himself credit for.

He pulls Neil’s head back around so they’re eye to eye. He asks, “Yes or no?”

“Yes,” Neil says, and then stays absolutely still when Andrew leans forward and kisses him.

Neil doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he’s perfectly willing to give control over to Andrew - with the careful, pliant part of his mouth, and the way he reaches out to touch Andrew before pausing. He’s waiting for permission. Andrew feels the tickle of something breaking inside of him at the idea.

Neil isn’t objectively a good kisser. He’s blatantly inexperienced. His power bubbles through them, turning the kiss into something that feels like circuits breakers blowing, and it’s not necessarily in a pleasant way. When they break apart, he blinks and his pupils are blown open. Andrew wants to kiss him again despite all of that, but he doesn’t.

He feels thrown. The only balm for it is Neil’s scattered expression and how he presses hands that shake a little to the windowsill.

There’s a banging at the door then, as someone tries to open the door and finds it locked. From the other side, Nicky yelps, “Neil!”

Neil leaps back so quickly he nearly checks his shoulder on the wall, wide-eyed. Andrew looks at him and then goes to get the door to give him a few seconds to get a grip on himself.

Nicky is smiling when Andrew opens the door, though it dims a little when he realises it’s Andrew not Neil. He’s exuding purpose, just a touch, and Andrew wonders if that’s for him or whether it was useful for the rest of the coven.

“Hey,” he says, “Drinks to celebrate our certain death? The big kids are buying. And by buying I mean supplying the booze they snuck in here.”

“I don’t drink,” Neil reminds him from over Andrew’s shoulder.

“You can drink water then, see if I care. Come on, I won’t take no for an answer.”

He’s here for Neil, not for Andrew, not that he would be disappointed if Andrew came. It’s just that he knows well enough Andrew will say no, and that Neil is attached enough to the other Foxes that he’ll say yes.

“Is Kevin there?” Neil asks, not even attempting to sound casual.

“Nah, he’s sulking,” Nicky says. “Come on!”

Neil casts a helpless look at Andrew but nods, rounding Andrew to slide out the door. “Are you coming, Andrew?”

He closes the door as his answer. Then, once their footsteps have faded out, he goes looking for Kevin upstairs.

True to Neil’s suspicions, he’s in Wymack’s rooms, curled on the couch with the television on some kind of hospital drama. Wymack is in the kitchen at the table and he looks up as Andrew walks past but doesn’t say anything. Andrew drops down on the couch at the opposite end from Kevin, absently staring at the people in their scrubs melting down over some patient and maybe their marital disharmony.

“He’s going to get us killed,” Kevin mutters eventually.

Andrew shrugs. “No one is making you stay.”

Kevin turns a hard look on Andrew. “I’m not going to run.”

“Aren’t you?” Andrew asks. “You already did once.”

“That wasn’t the same,” Kevin snaps.

“No,” Andrew agrees. The Crows are nothing like the Foxes. On the other hand, he would be running for the same reason - desperation, and fear.

“You agree with him,” Kevin says, an accusation. He doesn’t say who or about what, but he doesn’t need to.

“You already knew that,” Andrew replies boredly. “Watch the doctors, Kevin. I’m not interested.”

Kevin growls something under his breath but subsides, his face drawn up and stubborn. Andrew is still waiting for him to prove him wrong. He thinks the next few weeks will either be the making or the breaking of their deal.

It figures that it would take Neil Wesninski, with his sharp tongue and his Raven collar, to push Kevin to the edge. On that front, Andrew can relate.

 

* * *

 

Ostara falls on the twentieth of March, and their usual plans are completely thrown by their self-imposed lockdown in Fox Tower.

“Maybe we can go for a little while,” Nicky suggests, hopeful. He and Aaron have invaded their room, sitting around the coffee table on the carpet to play cards. Nicky always wins, but Aaron obliges him anyway. “We deserve a break, right? And there’s no way they’ll go after us in public.”

“We need to stick together as a group,” Neil says, which he’s been saying on and off by rote for the last week. Then he looks up. “Wait, go where?”

“They always have a party for Ostara at Eden’s Twilight,” Nicky provides. “It’s really fun, and they love having Aaron and Andrew there. Green mages, you know.”

“Ostara?”

“Oh, God, you poor child, I always forget you lived under a rock,” Nicky says, with a big fake pout. What he actually means is that he’s forgotten Neil mostly grew up as an old blood where they tend to eschew the more fae-oriented ceremonies. “Ostara is the spring equinox. It’s like a lead-up to spring and Beltane. There’s dancing and stuff. Beltane is more fun, but I don’t think you and your delicate sensibilities would be up for a fertility ritual.”

Neil looks like he doesn’t dare ask. He says instead, “I don’t think we can have a break to party. Why don’t we do something here with the others?”

“Because that wouldn’t be as fun,” Nicky replies. “The best part of Ostara is having a big group of people. You need to see it to understand.”

Neil flickers a glance at Kevin, and then Andrew. “We could take the rest of the coven with us. Safety in numbers.”

Kevin makes a face. “Wymack?”

“Someone needs to stay at the Tower,” Aaron points out. He’s feigning boredness, but Andrew can tell he’s listening to conversation intently.

“Andrew?” Neil asks. It’s a throwaway, but the intensity from the other three people in the room at the sound of him saying Andrew’s name is palpable.

“They won’t want to go anywhere with us,” Andrew replies. “They’ve been before. Didn’t they tell you about that?”

“Yes they did. And yes, they will,” Neil says. “We’ve been cooped up here since the banquet, they want to have a break just as much as you. And it’ll be good for us.”

He means that. Andrew wonders if they’ll prove him wrong. He’s struggling to imagine a scenario where them all socialising together doesn’t end in bloodshed.

Then again, Andrew already gave him permission for this.

“If you say so,” Andrew says. “Invite them if you like. If they’re brave enough to come, we’ll see how well it turns out.”

Neil nods, satisfied, pulling out his cellphone. Nicky starts to say something, but Aaron elbows him and it breaks off into a squeak, a huff of strangled surprise bleeding out of him via magic.

Five minutes later, Neil looks up from his phone and says, “They say yes,” so that’s that.

 

* * *

 

Allison walks into Eden’s, looks around, and then turns to Kevin with a smile like a shark. “Oh, Kevin. I didn’t realise this was your scene.”

“You’re here too,” he replies sourly.

“We all know it’s mine,” Matt tells the group breezily. He’s never shied away from his past dalliances with the fae and their addictive magics. “Come on, let’s get something to drink.”

Eden’s is full of greenery and fae, the room already bursting with magic that smells of spring. There’s a sense of unholy and inhuman revelry, and it’s true. Ostara is for witches, too, but not like it is for the fae.

It doesn’t belong to any of the Foxes, not really. Except for, of course, Aaron and Andrew.

Roland doesn’t seem to know where to look when the lot of them gather by the bar, Andrew’s lot along with Allison dressed in something made of glitter and not much else; Renee covered from throat to knees in pastel colours, Dan in scarlet brilliant against her dark skin and Matt on her arm. He says, “Hey. What can I get y’all?”

Allison grins at him too - poor choice of audience, really - and says, “Champagne.”

“She’ll have wine,” Renee corrects, placing a hand on her lower back. “I’m driving, so just a soda for me.”

“Boring,” Allison sneers, but subsides when Dan orders the same as her. Roland, meanwhile, is watching Renee with a touch of suspicion. They’ve met before, but that doesn’t mean much with Renee’s kind. She smiles back placidly, taking her drink and Allison with a promise to find a table for all of them by the time they’ve got their drinks. Matt and Dan follow soon after, which leaves the rest of them waiting.

Roland leans a little closer to Andrew. “Her?”

“Her,” Andrew confirms boredly.

Roland gives him a speaking look before turning to Neil. “Soda again?”

“Please,” Neil replies. He at least doesn’t check his glass for residue, although he catches Andrew watching him and the side of his mouth quirks when their eyes meet.

Nicky takes their tray easily, and Aaron clears a path for him through the crowd. Andrew lags a little behind, which means Roland can snag him before he leaves.

“Nice eye contact,” he says, quirking an eyebrow and grinning. “Does that mean you’re banging him now?”

“Fuck off,” Andrew tells him, still bland, and turns away.

He hasn’t gotten out of earshot when Roland calls out, low but carrying, “I’m taking that as a yes.”

He speeds up halfway across the room because he feels Nicky from there, a projection of good will as strong as alcohol. When he arrives at the table, all the Foxes are standing, eyes set on Renee and the individual talking to her.

“Hey, it’s fine,” Nicky is telling him. “She’s with us.”

The tall man looming over Renee doesn’t look away from her to say, “You think we trust you these days, Hemmick? Your cousin is a killer.”

Both Nicky’s cousins are killers, but this man doesn’t care about the death of a rogue witch. He’s fae of the same brand as Roland, not high fae but clearly of the blood by his fantastical colouring.

Nicky wilts a little, but he’s still pushing enough happy feeling that everyone around the table should be grinning. Actually, some of them are, but they aren’t nice.

Renee has a hand on Allison’s shoulder to restrain her and a gentle smile fixed on her face. “I don’t mean you any harm.”

“Maybe I mean you harm,” the stranger replies.

“I’d like to see you try it,” Dan snaps. “Fuck off.”

“I won’t leave until the necromancer does,” he snarls back.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Andrew asks from behind him, close enough he jumps and spins.

“We don’t want any trouble,” Nicky attempts, eyes flickering around like he’s looking for help and not finding any.

“Don’t we?” Andrew asks, almost a tease. He doesn’t care for trouble, but he does care about anyone making an issue for Renee, especially when he knows how that fight will spread.

There’s the shift of movement as someone steps up beside him, and Neil says. “Go away.”

The stranger looks down at him - big-eyed, slight, serious - and says, “Nice guard dogs, necromancer.”

Neil rolls his eyes. “Get this straight. You’ve got no chance against a coven full of witches. If you’re suicidal, go bother someone else more powerful than you. Otherwise, get a grip.”

He’s matter-of-fact, which probably makes it more emasculating. Worse is how he turns around like the stranger wouldn’t hit him from behind - like he isn’t even bothered by the thought, so sure that he’s safe - and bumps an open hand into Andrew’s chest once, herding him backwards. Andrew lets him without looking away, taking a seat. Neil sits beside him, and the other Foxes follow their lead. With no one left to fight, the stranger is forced to back off.

Matt chuckles. “Neil, that was cold.”

“Glacial,” Dan agrees.

“It was the truth,” Neil replies, opening his soda. Dan tilts her head, thoughtful.

“You think so?” she asks. “You think we could take on all the fae in this room who would turn on us if we started fighting and win?”

“Of course,” Neil answers. He shrugs tightly. “Don’t you?”

Dan watches him for a moment, and then grins, raising her glass. “Of course I do. Shall we drink to that?”

“You so can’t make a toast with soda,” Nicky protests, but raises his glass anyway.

“To the Foxes,” Dan says, still smiling. They all chorus back, “To us!”

Neil, of course, looks victorious. Not least because Kevin raises his glass, too.

 

* * *

 

Andrew doesn’t care about what the others are planning in regards to the Crows. The first indication he gets that it means anything to him at all is Kevin crashing through the door to their room, drunk out of his mind and with a bandage on his cheek.

It’s the noise that wakes Andrew. By the time he makes it to the door, Neil has peeled the bandage away to reveal the new tattoo underneath, and Kevin is monologuing.

The tattoo glitters with Fox magic from Wymack’s hand, copper against the stark black of the mark itself. In place of the stylized numeral Kevin has worn for a long, long time, there’s a chess piece.

Andrew hears Kevin say, very carefully, “I’m going to be the most powerful piece on the board,” and names it: “Queen.”

They both look at him, Neil with a flickered glance over his shoulder and Kevin dead on. Both sets of eyes have the same fire in them, something that Kevin has been missing for a long long time.

It takes the both of them to shove Kevin into his bed. He’s asleep as soon as his head touches his pillow, snoring gently. Neil is kind enough to peel off his shoes, but there’s a jittery energy in him that says it’s more out of not knowing what else to do than genuine care for how awful Kevin will feel when he wakes up.

Andrew collars him and drags him out of the bedroom into the little attached lounge, closing the door behind them. Neil wheels back on him, eyes intent, sparking a little.

“I guess he’s not a complete coward after all,” he says, smiling sharp as a knife.

All those people who whispered _earth-shaker_ when they thought Andrew couldn’t hear them really should have picked someone else for the title. Like this man, for example, who has thrown them all off of their feet.

“I suppose not,” Andrew agrees. He’s been waiting a long time for this moment, a single solid show of commitment from Kevin. It feels like something. It feels better than he thought it might.

Neil’s expression shifts, focussing that intensity on Andrew instead. “You can’t lie, can you?”

“I don’t lie,” Andrew corrects.

Neil hums, brow furrowing. “Is there a difference?”

“You said you’ve met some of the Fae before. What did you learn?”

“They’re tricksters,” Neil says straight away. Andrew thinks it’s rote-learned, like someone else once told him those words precisely. “You can’t trust them.”

“They can’t lie,” Andrew says. It’s agreement. “But you can’t trust them, because they don’t have to lie outright to turn you in so many circles that you blink and find yourself lost deep in the Courts at their mercy.”

“What’s your point?”

“I don’t lie,” Andrew repeats. “There’s a difference.”

Neil stares at him thoughtfully. “Okay.”

He’s close. It’s easy to put him against the wall and look pointedly at his hands until he shoves them deep into his pockets. He tilts his head obligingly for the kiss Andrew offers him, makes a little noise in the base of his throat when he feels Andrew’s hands at his belt. His fingers screw tight in the fabric of his pockets, pulling his jeans awkwardly.

Andrew reaches for his wrists then. Neil pauses like he thinks Andrew is checking they’re in the right place, but pulls back from the kiss when Andrew moves his hands for him to his shoulders.

“Just here,” he says, waiting for Neil’s nod, and then goes back to unzipping his jeans.

Andrew jerks him off, just this side of mean about it. He doubts Neil knows the difference anyway. He’s too busy being delighted by the fact Andrew lets him put his hands on his shoulders, in his hair, curling his fingers into it a little too thoughtfully. He pulls when he comes, head tilted back and eyes closed, mouth softly parted with pleasure.

Andrew gives him a bare moment to blink himself back down before he says, “Go away.”

Neil blinks, but doesn’t look taken aback. “Where?”

“Anywhere I don’t have to look at you,” Andrew says, and lets Neil kiss him one more time before he goes.

 

* * *

 

Andrew goes down to the training room, closing the door behind himself. In the centre of the floor, Kevin is drawing the circle with a fluidity that comes from being raised to it, along with an obsession with perfection.

Kevin looks up and frowns. “Where’s Neil?”

“He’s not coming,” Andrew replies, and sits in Neil’s usual spot.

Neil had been surprisingly willing to lose a day of practicing to Andrew when Andrew had asked. Andrew isn’t foolish enough to think Neil doesn’t have ulterior motives.

Kevin stares at him for a long moment, and then sits cross-legged across from Andrew. A whisper of magic from him seals the circle around them, like being enveloped in glass.

Making a circle of two witches is a matter of balance and of control, which is why Kevin has been having Neil do them for the past few months. However, Kevin’s opening push is far from the gentle tactic they employ in their larger circles. It’s a wildfire, an inferno, all leveled at Andrew.

It’s a test. It’s the opening salvo of a battle. And Andrew, who was born to fight, is happy to reply in kind.

If Kevin wants fire, Andrew can give him fire. He’s not just pretty flowers and the odd set of thorns. He bounces Kevin’s magic back with a dose of his own, thinks with an internal laugh of balance, and prepares himself for the retaliation.

It’s like playing tennis. They bounce the magic back and forth between them until it’s a firestorm around them, contained with the delicate walls of the circle - for now. Andrew grits his teeth, feeling the phantom sensation of his skin crackling with the heat, and holds out.

It’s inevitable that Kevin, with his massive and unending control, will be the one to end this. He snatches up the magic in the air and earths it so forcefully the foundations of the Tower probably shift deep in the soil. Andrew clenches his fist and the circle around them shatters, letting out the last of it.

Kevin can move quickly when he wants to. He pushes from sitting onto a knee, reaching out and grabbing Andrew’s shirtfront hard enough the seams complain.

“Why are you doing this?” he demands, his voice a snarl.

Andrew is still bubbling inside, needs to earth himself so he doesn’t crack through. It’s a matter of personal pride that he doesn’t laugh, manic, in response. Smiling, he says, “Is that really what you want to ask me?”

“I’ve asked you to fight like this for me this entire time,” Kevin says, ropeable. His hands are overly hot, almost enough to sear. He’s going to leave a charred handprint on Andrew’s shirt.

“You never asked,” Andrew replies.

Kevin pauses. “What?”

The door opens then, audibly, and Neil puts his head around it. He looks at them both, poised in a tableau of violence that isn’t going anywhere, by Kevin’s blank face, and looks relieved.

“What do you want?” Kevin snaps, letting go of Andrew and turning on an easier target. Neil appears unimpressed by his tone.

“I thought the two of you were going to blow the roof off,” he replies. “I only just managed to convince the others not to charge down here. You’re welcome.”

“You should have been here,” Kevin says. “You still need to practice.”

“Andrew asked me not to,” Neil says. “But I’m here now.”

He looks at Andrew with a question in his eyes, and Andrew replies with a jerk of his head. As Neil walks over he says, “Let me redraw the circle.”

Kevin throws a piece of chalk at him which Neil snatches from the air. He’s looking at Andrew like he’s a puzzle he wants to figure out, and like Andrew has just given him a key to it.

When Andrew moves to stand and step over the half-drawn circle, Kevin says, quietly, “Will you stay?”

So, he can learn, with the right impetus. Andrew looks at him, and says, “Not tonight.”

He touches a hand to the smile still twisting his face, pointedly. Kevin’s eyes duck down, and then he says, with a little edge, “Tomorrow?”

Andrew nods. “Tomorrow.”

 

* * *

 

Andrew finds himself waiting the next day, but it’s not until he seeks Neil out that he realises what he was waiting for. By then, it’s too late, and regret is a waste anyway, so he pushes that to the back of his mind.

Neil is reading one of the books Kevin has assigned him, or at least trying to. More accurately, he seems to be gazing out the window at his side over the city, his expression lost and perhaps a little yearning. He blinks and startles when Andrew appears, which goes to show how deeply he was absorbed in his thoughts.

It’s unusual for Andrew to want to know what someone is thinking. He hates it.

“Hey,” Neil says. There’s no more warmth in his expression for Andrew than there is for any other Fox, but his body opens to Andrew in a whispered welcome. Neil doesn’t know intimacy any better than Andrew does, but his body seems to have grasped the idea better than his brain.

His mouth is a little open, and he licks his lips while looking at Andrew’s. Andrew doubts he even realises he’s doing it.

He slides up on the far side of the table by the window, cracking it open and lighting a cigarette. It’s several minutes and breaths before the book closes, and Neil comes around the table to him, stopping a handspan away. He steals the cigarette from Andrew’s fingers and Andrew lets him.

“Why smoke?” he asks, looking at the cigarette thoughtfully before crushing it on the aluminium sill and letting it fall.

Andrew says, “Why not?”

“Lung cancer?” Neil has been watching too many of Kevin’s medical dramas, perhaps. The day they invent a TV station for witches will be a terrible day for Grey’s Anatomy and whatever else it is Kevin is addicted to.

“Do you think I’m going to live that long?”

Andrew doesn’t waste words so it isn’t a throwaway comment, but he does say it to earn a reaction. Apparently the one it earns is Neil tilting his head and saying, “Yes or no?”

“Yes,” Andrew says, clasping the front of Neil’s shirt to pull him a touch closer and preserve the space between their bodies at the same time. Neil’s hands hesitate and then go to Andrew’s hair, and then they kiss.

He’s improved, but the biggest change is his confidence. He still hands control to Andrew but he’s right there with no taste of passivity, battering like a tidal wave at Andrew’s defenses. Except that metaphor isn’t quite right, because when Andrew gives, just a touch, to see - a trap for the unwary - Neil doesn’t take from him. He’s still giving.

Andrew hates that, too.

“Let me go,” Neil says almost against Andrew’s mouth, and before Andrew can jerk away goes on, “Our deal. I want to break it.”

_Cyanide pill_. Andrew takes his hands off of him anyway, and says, “No.”

Neil tilts his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Andrew can count on the fingers of one hand how often it’s been that people have kept their word to him. “Are you no longer afraid of your father, or are you just trying to prove a point to yourself that you are braver than Kevin?”

“I’m still afraid,” Neil says. “And I don’t need to do anything to prove that.”

Andrew stares at him. It’s a prompt to explain, and Neil takes it.

“Kevin is learning to stand on his own now, finally,” he says. “He isn’t going to go anywhere. You can’t uphold your end of the deal if I’m not doing anything on mine. It’s not fair to you.”

The ease with which he says the word _fair_ , despite the life he has lived, is laughable. “Then give me something else.”

“What else do I have that you want?” Neil asks with a shrug. “Break our deal.”

“And then what will you do? Put a knife to your own throat, if you need to?”

“I don’t want to die,” Neil says, with a tight smile.

“You think your father cares about what you want?”

“No. But it’s not about that. I thought death would be better than servitude, and maybe I’m right about that - but as long as I’m alive, I still have a chance.”

Their bonds don’t work like that, except how they could. The Raven Coven like all the others are subject to the ruling of the Council, and it’s not completely corrupt just yet. Aaron’s bare wrists and throat are the proof of that.

Also, Neil is still a Fox. They won’t let go of him so easily, not even if it’s someone as powerful as Nathan Wesninski asking.

“I want to stay alive,” Neil says. “I want to fight my way back to you.”

He says it firm, says it as truthful as he knows how to. Andrew can feel it in his bones, and even though every one of his instincts says to search for something Neil can give for him and turn him down, he doesn’t.

“Fine,” he says. “But if someone comes for you don’t think that I’m going to fight for you.”

“No,” Neil answers, an agreement. “I think it’s about time I started to fight for myself.”

 

* * *

 

Andrew is blankly staring at some infomercial on the television when Kevin stomps into the lounge. He’s looking for someone, but he pauses at the sight of Andrew.

“Where’s Neil?” he asks. He’s frowning, offended. “He was meant to meet me for drills-”

He stops talking. Everything, for a moment, stops.

They’ve lost one of theirs before. Andrew never liked Seth Gordon, but he was far from immune to the feeling of their circle shattering and rejoining when that asshole finally took himself out.

This doesn’t feel like that. It feels like a pull at the core of Andrew’s power, a grip so tight at his wrists that he might lose his hands. It tugs and tugs, winding until Andrew can barely keep his feet, until he hears Kevin make a sharp sound in his throat - and then it snaps.

Andrew swore he’d never go to his knees for anyone ever again. Neil Wesninski keeps proving him goddamn wrong.

He scrapes his palms bloody, but his jeans protect his knees. The hole in the coven seals itself almost instantly, their circle winding itself back together, but the feeling reverberates. It doesn’t feel like Neil. It feels like nothing. Andrew thought he knew what that was like, but right now he isn’t so sure.

“Is he dead?” That’s Dan, breathless from the doorway. She’s clutching the frame with white knuckles.

“No.” Kevin is still upright, but he’s awfully pale. His eyes are bright when Andrew meets them. “They took him. The Ravens - they have him now.”

 

* * *

 

So much for all their planning.

Andrew goes looking, remembering _I want to fight my way back to you_ the entire time. Neil has left everything behind in their room. His phone is sitting on his bed, dead centre like it was placed there.

The last message he received says: COME OUT OR WE’LL COME IN AFTER YOU.

They gather together in the lounge, each white-faced to a varying degree. Andrew counts them off one-by-one, and there’s only one absent. That does at least limit betrayal from the inside, because no one who knows him would be stupid enough to hand Neil over and then to stay and face Andrew in the aftermath.

“How the hell did they even do that?” Matt demands, wild-eyed. “They just - ripped him away. It shouldn’t even be possible!”

“They’re powerful, Matt,” Renee says. She’s calm still, business-like. “They’re different to us.”

“If breaking bindings like this was just about power, do you think I would still be here?” Andrew asks.

The answer is irrelevant, because he knows what the others are thinking. All bar Wymack and Renee, not that they speak.

“It’s not about power,” Kevin reiterates. His eyes say that he knows exactly what it’s about.

The Tower floors are polished oak, long-dead but surprisingly responsive. Andrew blinks and finds them rising, rising, strong new shoots coming from nowhere and reaching for Kevin.

Except they aren’t coming from nowhere - they’re coming from Andrew, from the magic pouring out of him.

Magic is about intent. And Andrew really, really wants to wring Kevin’s throat until he spits the truth out.

“Andrew,” someone is saying. Andrew ignores it, even as other voices join in.

Then, magic almost the same as his worms in around his hold, shaking him loose and wresting the branches from his grasp. Kevin chokes and gasps, dropping to the floor.

“Talk,” Andrew says. No one touches him. That’s lucky. For them.

Kevin coughs, and then swallows. His voice is rough when he finally says, “Do you really think the Ravens would allow the use of spells where they didn’t have a backdoor?”

“They’re Council spells,” Dan says, uncomprehending.

“There’s no difference,” Aaron replies sharply. “You think the Council is just and righteous just because Jeremy Knox is on it?”

“The collar Neil wears was put on him by his father,” Kevin says. “It’s a Raven version of the approved spell - not that different, but different enough. It might take power, but they can take control of any Raven mage wearing one, no matter what Coven they’re bound to, as long as they’re weaker as a whole.”

“He knew that,” Andrew says. It’s not a question. It’s a statement. It was never a temptation to run that Andrew sometimes saw on him - it was the knowledge that someday, the Ravens would come for him, no matter who he gave himself over to.

“Andrew, breathe,” Wymack says. The ground isn’t shaking, so Andrew doesn’t know why he’s bothering.

Kevin pushes himself up onto his knees, looking at Andrew warily as he does it. Whatever he imagines he sees in Andrew’s face makes him push up to his feet. “He’ll still be alive. He’s a valuable asset.”

“Shut up Kevin,” Nicky hisses. He’s looking at Andrew with flickering nervous eyes too.

“For now,” Allison says, arms crossed, unimpressed by all of them. “Didn’t you guys learn from the monster that you don’t need someone alive for your magic?”

There’s a long moment of silence. Andrew breathes. Then Wymack says, “The question is, what do we do now?”

“Is it really a question?” Dan asks. Her voice falls into quiet. “We’re not leaving him. They can’t have him. He’s ours.”

 

* * *

 

Andrew always knew that all of this would come down to a fight.

It’s not hard to find their way towards where Neil is, because whoever has him is making no effort to conceal their path. It leads them from the city to the suburbs and into the wooded areas where they have to leave the cars and go on foot.

Andrew breathes in deeply when he steps out of the GS. The forest reaches back to him, arms open in welcome, and he lets it embrace him, just for second. There’s a whisper of leaves against one another, of branches moving, even though there isn’t a breath of wind, a gentle crescendo.

“Andrew, take point,” Wymack says, brisk, breaking the silent moment. When Andrew moves into position he notices some of the others looking at him as though surprised. Kevin comes up behind Andrew to fall in at Andrew’s back with Dan just behind him.

“They shouldn’t have brought us here,” Kevin says. He sounds vaguely surprised that they would be so foolish, but he shouldn’t be. “This isn’t their domain.”

“They think everywhere is their territory,” Dan says. “It’s about time someone proved them wrong.”

For once, Andrew agrees with her.

They’re completely surrounded by trees when Andrew feels the first pulses of other witches somewhere nearby. It takes another ten minutes of walking before Dan raises a hand and says, “They’re out here.”

Aaron pauses. “I thought you said it was the Ravens.”

Kevin tilts his head. “What?”

“You said it was the Raven Coven who has him,” Aaron clarifies. “I can feel Crows.”

He’s not wrong. There are Ravens out here, but the Crows outnumber them by far.

“He’s not wrong,” Matt says. “They’re trying to surround us. Do you feel that?”

“Mm-hm,” Wymack agrees. “They’re not springing the trap yet, so we’re not where they want us. Thoughts?”

“We don’t want to walk into their hands,” Kevin says. His eyes are darting like he expects Riko to appear at any moment.

“No kidding,” Dan says. “Allison, can you get us into a better position?”

“Maybe half of us,” she muses. She should look a lot more out of place in the middle of the forest than she does. Her one concession to being out here is that she’s exchanged her high heels for sneakers. “There’s no way they won’t be able to sense the monsters through my magic, though.”

“We might be able to use that. But what we really need is a distraction,” Matt says.

“Let me,” Renee says.

They all look to her, but it’s Dan who says, “Is there anything for you to work with?”

Renee smiles, beatific. “Forests are graveyards.”

Allison matches her smile, then makes it sharper. “I can make you a fog.”

Dan laughs. “Do it.”

“Hm,” Allison says. “Aaron, help me.”

There’s no reply, but Andrew feels the rise of Aaron’s power alongside Allison’s. The mist that pours across the ground is thick as soup, turning the forest to something out of a nightmare. It floods outwards, muffling everything, prickling damp on Andrew’s skin.

“Creepy,” Matt says. His tone is approving.

“Andrew,” Renee says, and holds a hand out to him. He palms a knife from its sheath on the inside of his forearm and passes it over to her, watching her cut across her own palm. It’s not a deep wound, but it bleeds quickly into a pool in her curved hand.

When she has a handful, she tips her hand over and lets the blood fall to the earth.

It’s not like when the rest of them use their magic. Renee’s is built purely on the sacrifice of her blood - or someone else’s, though Renee, unlike Natalie, would never - and it feels more like a breaking than a rising when she uses it.

The dead are powerful. A necromancer who can harness them is more so.

They hear them before they see them - the scratching, limping crawl of misshapen limbs across the forest floor, the click of dry joints, and the unpleasant sound of jellying flesh. Andrew can’t feel them so much as he can sense their passing as they peel to each side of the Foxes. He does feel Kevin stiffen as he catches sight of one of the nearest - some kind of deer, clearly wrong by the set of its neck and forelimbs, still walking because it can’t feel pain anymore.

Behind it is a shambling shape which is certainly human. One arm hangs down too long, bouncing along with the thing’s gait. Andrew just barely catches sight of a bloated-white face with a mouth that stretches too wide before it disappears into the fog.

“Distraction,” Wymack says approvingly. “Now we need to-”

Before he can finish, there’s a distant booming of the distance. It’s thunder. It’s also familiar.

“Neil,” Kevin hisses.

“What are they,” Nicky begins, before lightning rips across the sky overhead, too low to be natural, illuminating their fog in blue and white.

“He’s not out of control,” Kevin says. “They’re doing...something to him.”

“That’s the trap,” Matt says frantically. “Right?”

“You can bet they’re waiting for us,” Dan says. She’s lost the smile, her voice overrun with frustration. “Fuck. We can just storm after him.”

No, they can’t.

_They_ can’t.

“Send me,” Andrew says. He sounds calm. He is.

“You can’t just walk into a trap alone, Andrew,” Kevin says. “They’ll kill you as well as him.”

Andrew barely resists the urge to choke him again. “They can try.”

“They’ll succeed,” he snaps. “You might be powerful, but _so are they_.”

“They aren’t like me,” Andrew says. He can’t lie. “And they’re in my territory now.”

“That doesn’t mean-”

“Let me go,” Andrew says, his voice halfway to hushed. It’s audible anyway amidst the falling silence, the air still and wet and hot like something is coming.

It’s coming from inside of him. In a moment, they might not have a choice about breaking his shackles - he’ll go, and take all of them with him. Kevin, Nicky, his brother - every last one of them, as blood and ashes.

“Andrew,” Wymack begins. He isn’t frightened of Andrew, but he still sounds concerned. That it might be for Andrew rather than of him seems more bizarre than anything else.

“Let him go,” Kevin interrupts, pale-faced, wearing the imprints of Andrew’s magic at his throat. He looks afraid but resolute - a warrior at last, fashioned from Fox stock rather than the Crows who tried to beat it into him. They never have understood that it’s about who you fight for, not what.

“Do it,” Aaron says. He’s looking at Andrew like he knows him, and nothing could be further from the truth, except for this moment right here and now.

One by one, the Foxes nod. Wymack, face grave, beckons Andrew closer.

“For the love of everything, please don’t get yourself killed,” he says, fake frustration over the genuine sentiment, and then without further ado begins to set Andrew free.

 

* * *

 

The trees tell him where to go.

To be fair, he barely needs them. The more east he goes, the more he can feel the faint traceries of Neil’s magic, growing more distinct as he gets closer. It feels like pure lightning, the most unpredictable and potentially devastating part of a storm.

Andrew wonders what they mean to do with Neil. Then he wonders what they’re doing to him right now, and walks faster.

His feet and the smell of ozone lead him out of the trees and into a clearing. It’s clear that the people within the clearing have been waiting for him. The only one standing says, “Oh, here’s your attempted rescuer. I admit that I was expecting more of them.”

He’s talking to a hunched shape on the grass, a figure limned in electric light. It makes the blood show better. It’s Neil, on his knees.

Nathan Wesninski looks everything and nothing like his son, eyes and hair colouring against a face as cool as marble. For all his stoicism, Neil has never been so capable of feeling nothing. Andrew hates that he knows that.

“Ah,” Wesninski says. His gaze is all recognition, but no fear. “You’re the Minyard boy. Last I heard, you wore a leash. Have you tired of the Foxes?”

“Things change,” Andrew replies. He feels divorced, the inside of his head silent and cut off. He’s not sure how much is the absence of the Coven and how much is pure compartmentalisation.

“Did you come here for him?” Wesninski asks. “I’m afraid he may not be of much use to you anymore, once we’ve stripped him of what belongs to us.”

That’s when Andrew realises there’s a deceptively plain lump of crystal on the ground a few feet from Neil. It’s diamond, because Wesninski is smarter than Drake.

Not smart enough to start the spell before Andrew arrived, though. Perhaps the elder Wesninski needs an audience to do his work.

“You shouldn’t have come here alone,” Nathan says, power starting to sing in the air in a way that is just audible to Andrew.

“I’m never alone,” Andrew replies. After all; he has a brother.

In the distance, Aaron breathes in. Andrew breathes out. Even with him free of the Foxes, the two of them are inexorably bound. All they need is the ground beneath their feet, and the fact that the both of them are alive.

“I hope you don’t mean my son,” Nathan says, with a casual gesture to Neil.

Andrew doesn’t say anything. He breathes in instead, reaching down into the earth - through the grass and the rich loam, into the clay underneath, and deeper, deeper, to stone. Under his feet, the ground murmurs. He sees the flicker in Nathan’s eyes the second he feels it.

“What is this?” Nathan demands. “This is outside the bounds of green magery.”

“Underestimation is a power,” Andrew tells him, and then makes his move.

 

* * *

 

Neil collapses down, a broken doll at the foot of a tree that says _alive, alive, alive_ when Andrew thoughtlessly reaches out to it. His magic is faster than his feet, but they don’t pause in taking him there.

As long as he lives, Andrew will never be able to make another promise about kneeling when he knows he can’t keep them. The earth under his knees feels tight with magic, the grass sprouting neon green in the spots where it has been charred black or torn apart.

“You can’t be here,” Neil insists weakly, but he doesn’t protest Andrew’s hand when it comes down on his chest. He’s hurt, skin bubbled with blisters in places through his charred shirt. Andrew’s skills have never lain in healing, and he’s not about to start trying now, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t bite down on the taste of yearning for a split-second.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t fight for me,” Neil says, with a taste of humour, before sobering. “I’m sorry.”

Andrew’s other fist clenches. His teeth grind together. He says through them, “Shut up.”

Neil waits for a second before saying, very quietly, “They would have killed all of you. You didn’t even know they were coming.”

Neil had, though.

“I didn’t want to leave,” he goes on. He’s trailing his own magic like it’s bleeding out of him, just waiting for someone else to take hold of it like a leash and chain him back down. Andrew feels it and realises he’s no different, out in the field of war with Ravens and Crows all around them.

He remembers Neil’s jaunty assessment of his mother’s discovery in the greenhouse. _It requires two bound mages sealing their magic together permanently_. He can tell that Neil is thinking the same thing.

“Do it,” Andrew says. His voice comes out like the distant roll of the earth, all sound with only the promise of sensation. Like potential, for all his tone is as level as ever. His anger is the slow movement of magma underneath all that.

Neil lifts his fingers, circling the fabric under which he can feel the magic of Andrew’s fetter. There is no flinch despite the vulnerability of that spot, just fabric and a web of magic between Neil and Andrew’s pulse.

“We could still die from it,” Neil whispers. Even through the pain, his eyes are very clear.

Andrew replies, “We’re all going to die.”

He means _anyway_ , but he also means _right now_. He has no idea how many Foxes are still alive up on the front lines, how many have gasped their last breath and shed blood on the ground. There’s a high chance that the two of them will join them before the day is done.

Neil’s fingers move, tightening around Andrew’s wrist. He says, “Close your eyes.”

Andrew looks at him for a long moment, and then does as Neil says. He hears Neil shift and sigh, the increase in the heart rate beneath his palm.

It’s less an amalgamation that Andrew might have imagined. That’s lucky, because even here and now he’s not sure how capable he is of being cracked open without shattering irreparably, of falling to pieces in the wake of the dazzling rush of Neil’s magic.

It’s not a breaking. Instead, the living stone of Andrew’s power is embraced by wind and water and just a hint of electric veining. And then it embraces back in a way that feels impossible to Andrew.

Impossible, but still happening. He is overly full and familiar with magic, pressing against his skin from the inside. They are distinct, but joined – Andrew’s wrists to Neil’s throat, the bonds tying themselves together into an ouroboros.

There is a breathless moment of nothingness – then, the storm arrives.

Andrew’s hand drops off of Neil’s chest to the dirt, leaving him leaning over Neil. He feels a fragile, sharp-edged grin flash over his face, there and gone an instant later, and all Andrew can taste is copper and ozone. Overhead, the sun is swallowed whole.

Underneath them, the ground shifts like a sleeper waking. _Earth-shaker._

“Time to change the game,” Andrew says, “Don’t you think?”

 

* * *

 

It’s been a long, long time since Andrew held the reins, and longer still since he loosened them.

Neil is an ocean storm inside, wind and water, from the very deepest depths of the sea to the furthest reaches of the cumulonimbus towering above. Andrew - Andrew isn’t like him. Not really.

He’s the green growth, old trees stretching their branches to the sun. He’s the earth and stone beneath them, even older. He’s what lies underneath those things, churning slow and molten at the Earth’s core, metal and stone made magma. He’s all the destructive power of a volcano - of every volcano on earth, erupting at once.

The Ravens are afraid of him. And they should be.

Kevin is right. They shouldn’t have brought Andrew here. This is his domain - the forest, where the boundaries between the Covens and the Courts are the thinnest.

Kevin is also wrong. For all his ranting about Andrew’s control, he has no idea what control means. The whisper of a slip up is nothing at all when he could rip half the country apart if he decided to.

“Where are the others?” Neil asks. Andrew feels the words more than he hears them, like he’s the one speaking.

Andrew shows him. Words are near-impossible for him right now. Walking feels like an unnecessary chore, but even like this he can’t break physics and just teleport himself back to the Foxes.

With Neil stealing the sounds of their approach out of the air and Andrew coiling up their combined power to hide it, no one can sense them coming. They come up behind a line of Crows and take them completely by surprise.

It would be so, so easy to kill them. That they don’t is something of a surprise, and isn’t particularly down to Neil, who would happily stop their hearts in their chests with a well-aimed bolt of lightning, who wouldn’t care if he burnt their bodies to ashes in the process either. Instead, Andrew opens the ground at their feet and seals them inside, swallowed to the neck and immobilised by earth and roots and stone.

What matters is that they clear a path to the Foxes on the front line. There, Kevin is locked in a fight with a woman Andrew doesn’t recognise, but Neil does.

“Lola!” he calls out. His voice comes out strong, which is somehow surprising - at some point, the disconnect between Andrew’s brain and his mouth has solidified, but it hasn’t spread to Neil.

The woman pauses, and nearly gets scorched for her troubles. She’s Raven-tattooed, which is the proof that it’s not just Crows here besides Nathan. She also doesn’t look amused to see Neil here and standing, and clearly in the possession of his magic.

“You,” she says, and then turns the full force of her magic on Neil in one fierce attack.

Andrew thinks that Neil might find the attack difficult to repell if he was alone. But he isn’t alone, not even inside his head. The shield he throws up is almost careless, but it bounces Lola’s magic earthwards where it scars the ground in deep furrows.

The spell he casts back is wordless, barely a spell at all, more like a pure show of elemental magic. It’s lightning, searing the air so it reeks of ozone, striking with the sound of a plane crashing into the ground.

When the light fades, there’s nothing more than a blistered spot of earth where Lola had stood just a moment before.

There’s a breathless pause. Not just the Crows, but the Foxes, too. It’s too much to hope for that the show of force will make them surrender, though. The first to strike back is another Raven, his face twisted with fury. Neil turns the attack aside again with his air-shield, but is forced back by another wave of magic, this time from the regrouping Crows. Andrew and Neil fall back in alongside the Foxes.

“Good to see you’re still alive,” Matt yells, his hands glowing like embers betweens strikes. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Neil replies.

“Your father?” That’s Renee, on the other side of Matt. She’s quiet for now, waiting - there aren’t enough bodies for her to work with, perhaps.

“Dead,” Neil replies, with a quick glance at Andrew.

“Good,” Wymack says. “What the hell did the two of you do?”

“Later,” Neil says. “I’ll explain later.”

Andrew punctuates that with a forceful shove at the earth, rending it to pieces and breaking the Crow circle again. They aren’t working well with the Ravens in their midst, and seem to be falling back in favour of allowing the older and more ruthless witches to take the front line. He wonders who they are, and doesn’t have to wonder long before Neil provides a wordless answer in the form of a flashing memory.

Him, being dragged from the shadow of the Tower and forced into the back of a car. Him, on his knees, with the five of them - Nathan, Lola, Jackson, Romero, DiMaccio, who Andrew knows as names if not faces - tearing him from the Foxes. Them dragging him out here as bait, and as a battery to be drained.

“Where the hell is Riko?” he hears Neil demand, just before the ground properly rolls.

“The fuck?” Someone - maybe Allison - says from within their circle. They move to keep their balance - all of them, except for Andrew, and Neil.

Lola is gone, and so is Nathan. The three leftover - and Andrew is still seeing them laughing at the thin pained sound Neil made when they threw him to the ground - are clustered tight together, throwing attack after attack at the Foxes.

They don’t get a chance to run.

Andrew is in the earth, running alongside roots and then deeper. His fae brethren might not approve of breaking it apart, but he’s human, too. When he calls, stone answers. Magma does, too.

The earth cracks apart, like a maw. There’s a gout of what might be steam, rising from deep down, and then a sharp human cry, and then the fissure closes with such force that Andrew feels several sets of hands and knees impact the earth like fingers on his skin.

The ground bubbles faintly in the wake, still hot. There aren’t any Ravens left. There’s not much of Andrew left, either.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he hears someone say, and then nothing else.

He hasn’t felt like this in a long, long time. The Foxes are one thing, pinpricks of power on the ground which is him which is still the earth. He half considers swallowing them, too, and then remembers that he isn’t supposed to do that. There’s a reason, probably. Not remembering the specifics isn’t something that ever happens to him, short a head injury and this moment right now. He pushes that aside in favour of the other, darker pinpricks - Crows, and one in particular.

A little voice at the bounds of his awareness says his name. He’s caught up in the idea of turning this forest into ground zero, or into a proper graveyard. Enough of these little pinpricks snuffed out and the trees will be fed for years. Or he could feed them to the deeper core, let their bones melt and be swept away. It’s tempting. It’s very tempting.

The voice says, _Take them alive_.

He tries to push it away. But it’s tied to him, because he tied it to him, inexorable and unbreakable.

He’s not a creature that can be given orders, but he is a person who responds to requests. Especially when they’re from a human personification of a summer storm.

He gives the pinpricks - witches - to the trees, though not entirely. This forest is old, with big deep-rooted trees that have been whispered awake by his presence here. When Andrew asks them, they reach out, and hold.

There’s resistance, fire thrown at the roots and branches, but Andrew pours himself into the trees, too, and they stay fast. Suddenly he’s in all the forest, tangled irrevocably, holding tight along with them.

He’s still there when the taste of storm magic rolls in alongside him, ripping the bonds connecting those pinpricks to shreds, leaving them like little lone stars in his grip. They stop struggling after that.

He’s not sure how long he stays before there’s a familiar prod at his power. It’s not the weather-witch. It’s something more familiar than that, green - his brother, pressing at him with an impatience that makes Andrew hold harder.

_No_ , he thinks, and he thinks it must come across because his brother melts away.

There’s the scrape of bitter-cold bone fingers at him, there and then gone before he can even reply with the force he wants to use on them.

The fire that tries after he nearly answers, but he likes to say no to that one in particular. He pushes back instead, forcing the near-gentle probe back.

There’s a pause where he just - exists, lost. Then the niggle says, _Andrew. Come back._

Andrew doesn’t want to go back. He made Wymack strip his anchor off. He doesn’t want to be collared again, not by magic and not by flesh. He’s deep in the trees, in the earth, and if he still has a body at all he has no bond to it.

Except that’s not quite true. There are fingers on his - on his face, curled warm and generous around his jaw.

_Come back to me._

He feels the words more than he hears them, deep in his blood. He doesn’t want to listen, but he can’t not.

_Andrew._

He breathes in. Those fingers push up into his hair and tug a little.

“Are you with me?” Neil asks. This time it’s Andrew’s ears relaying the information to his brain, with just the faint echo of them in the bond between them.

Andrew opens his eyes as his answer. Neil’s face solidifies in front of him, vividly familiar down to the unappealing look in his eyes. He says, “Hey,” and smiles anyway when Andrew ignores him.

He’s left a surprising amount of the forest around them standing, he finds. Or maybe it isn’t really that surprising.

“The Council is here,” Aaron says. He’s the closest to the pair of them, as the least offensive Fox. Andrew can feel Kevin hovering behind him, and the others just a little further back. All of them, bar -

\- “Renee went after Jean,” Dan says. “She’s getting him out of here, before the Council takes him. Do you need to leave too?”

“No,” Neil tells her. “Let them come.”


	4. epilogue (these scars are silver and gold)

Afterwards, they have to go before the Council again.

The difference is that this time they’re not the ones on trial. The Crow Coven is the one that will probably be at the very least disbanded, provided they avoid being put down. Except for, of course, Jean Moreau.

There’s an uncertain amount of prodding at Andrew and Neil, but no one seems particularly willing to ask any questions of them right now. Andrew considers this cowardice, but Neil seems pleased for the reprieve.

As far as anyone outside of the Foxes knows, the two of them found a way to break their collars, but they aren’t willing to talk about it. No one has looked close enough to find the thin but impenetrable tracery of magic on their tattoos designed to cover up the truth. And no one, not even the Council, is willing to try and make them talk.

“You’d think they were scared,” Neil says at the end of one day, eyes opaque.

“They should be,” Matt says, teasing but still the truth.

No one raises the obvious point for days, and of course it’s Neil who brings it up when they’re together in the Tower lounge, arms crossed.

“Aren’t you going to ask us what we’re going to do now?” he demands.

Half of them stare blankly back, but there’s a flicker of something that isn’t quite guilt on the faces of some of them - Dan, notably, and Kevin. Andrew isn’t sure whether they’ve avoided asking in the hopes nothing will change, or because they’re hoping it will.

“We thought you would tell us when you decided,” Wymack replies, unbothered.

“There’s no decision to make,” Neil says, because the same man who’d needed convincing to come here now has not a single intention of leaving, and because he’s been simmering for days wanting to tell the Foxes as much. “We’re Foxes. As long as you’ll have us, we want to stay.”

It’s almost heartening that they look to Andrew in the wake of this like they want his verbal confirmation too. He shrugs and says, without Neil’s last tick of uncertainty - _as long as you’ll have us_ \- “We’re staying.”

There’s not a Fox in the room who doesn’t look relieved. Andrew would like to say it’s because they don’t want to lose this kind of power, but he knows that isn’t why. The Foxes, for all their failings, have never been interested in strength of magic.

He would also like to say that Neil’s face isn’t relieved, but he would be lying. Apparently Neil still knows the value of verbal communication over and above their particular brand of unspoken connection, even if that doesn’t extend to asking Andrew the question himself out loud.

“We can make it official right now, if you want,” Wymack says. He, of course, is not surprised. “We’re all here.”

“Fine,” Neil says, like a challenge, as serious as a judge.

They go through into the training room and gather inside the circle, spreading out around Neil and Andrew in their centre. Andrew takes a moment to look at Neil, the twisted lines of his collar now more organic than ever and flushing between black and dark, dark green. He doesn’t need to see his own wrists to know the once-plain fetters he wears are marked over, with glittering violet like spidering lightning.

They will likely never wear the copper-orange marks of the Foxes. This is better.

Neil meets his eyes when they sit knee to knee, offering a small smile. He murmurs, “Not on my knees this time.”

“On your ass,” Andrew comments back, and allows Neil to take his hands, folding their fingers together. Just like that, they’re in balance. Fire and earth versus air and water. It’s strange how these things work out.

“It’s pretty easy,” Wymack says from the eastern point. “We make the circle and reach out, and then you reach back.”

Not much has ever been easy. It seems right somehow that this might be the start.

Andrew looks at Neil again as the magic around them rises, point to point, familiar enough he’d know it in his sleep. Fire and air from Kevin, Dan’s heat like molten metal, Nicky’s storm of emotion, Aaron’s green growth and water, all winding together into a point. Not a point - an arm, outstretched.

Andrew and Neil, as one, reach back and take hold.

 

* * *

 

The thing is, Moreau’s collar wasn’t applied by the Council, and it can’t be removed by them. Even if it could, it’s doubtful Moreau would go before them anyway.

Apparently, Andrew and Neil are a different story. That’s why he arrives in South Carolina with Jeremy Knox as his escort and asks them if they can remove it.

“I can’t promise that it won’t kill you,” Neil says. They agreed to meet with the other two mages in the Tower, with Kevin hovering at the edge of the room like an overbearing mother.

“That’s fine,” Moreau says.

“No it’s _not_ fine,” Knox says a moment later. The look Moreau sends him is dismissive. “Jean-”

“It’s my choice,” Moreau says quietly. “You said that. Remember?”

“I did say that, yes,” Knox replies, and then sighs. He clasps a hand around the back of Moreau’s neck, and then tugs him down till they’re of a height, touching their foreheads together. “Don’t die, please.”

“No promises,” Moreau says wryly, but he lets Knox hold on until he’s ready to pull away. “Go stand over there.”

“I’ll stay,” Knox replies, firm.

“It’s really better if you stay out of the way,” Neil interrupts blandly. “Your magic could throw off the spell.”

A shadow passes over Knox’s face. Andrew wonders when he got so attached to his adopted witch, and then pushes the thought aside as irrelevant.

“Keep Kevin company,” Moreau suggests. “Please.”

Knox purses his mouth but submits, turning away to join Kevin at the fringe of the clearing.

“Enjoying your new coven?” Neil asks, somewhat snidely, when Knox is probably but not definitely out of earshot.

The look Moreau turns on him is a killer. He doesn’t answer, but Neil evidently takes it as an agreement anyway.

“Sit in the centre of the circle,” Andrew tells Moreau as he takes the southern point for himself. Neil takes the northern point, and without doing anything else Andrew feels the lines of their connected magic strengthening with the magnification of the circle.

“You know that you don’t have to do this,” Neil says to Moreau quietly. “I told you I spoke to Ichirou. There will be peace.”

“You think I can trust that?” Moreau replies.

Neil shrugs, and then says, “Okay. Let’s begin.”

He looks to Andrew, and just like that, their circle rises. The way they broke the Crow Coven apart was instinctual, and done without care for the lives of the people they held in their hands. This is different, because Neil doesn’t like Moreau but would probably die for him, and Knox will probably react badly if they do manage to kill him.

That said, there’s no rules for this kind of magic, and the two of them have always worked best outside of the rules anyway.

The collar is wound deep into Moreau’s core, little threads curled as far as they can go. Neil and Andrew reach for them as one, investigating them like a root system.

Removing them with one witch alone, with anything except perfect balance, would be impossible. For most people, identifying just how far the magic goes would be the end of this attempt. For Andrew and Neil, it isn’t.

In the end, it isn’t that different to what they did to the Crows. Andrew reaches out and grips every string of chains holding Moreau down, and then Neil severs them.

The aftereffects are stunning. Wind rips through the room, powerful enough to level trees. It’s only a quickly-erected barrier thrown up by Knox and Kevin together that holds it in. Outside the building, thunder crashes. There’s no taste of lightning in the air, though.

Moreau collapses backwards. Knox says, “Jean!” in a panicked voice.

“I’m fine,” Moreau replies from where he’s sprawled between Andrew and Neil, earthing his magic, gasping his first breath as a freed man. “I’m okay.”

 

* * *

 

Neil’s control is better, these days. But Kevin’s training hasn’t done much for his short-fuse temper, and definitely hasn’t helped him when they’re in bed.

He’s not careful, and not passive either - his inexperience renders him a strangely charming combination of shy and shameless, sensitive to every one of Andrew’s touches. He’s more than happy to let Andrew be in charge. He gets loose and a little bit wild, setting the air to prickling with static.

Fortunately Andrew is lightning-proof now. On the other hand, if he has to replace any more lightbulbs, he’s going to have to make an issue of it.

Neil underneath him is all restrained movement and wanting noises, his shirt peeled off of him and his boxers at mid-thigh. He’s scarred more than he ever was before, swathes of his chin rippled with burns that even Aaron couldn’t do anything about, deep enough that some patches are insensate now. That means Andrew presses his mouth to the patches of unblemished skin as he makes his way down Neil’s body.

He bucks upwards a little when Andrew gets his mouth on his cock, but goes still when Andrew’s hands pin him to the mattress. The only avenue for him after that is, apparently, his hands, which wind into Andrew’s hair and trace across his shoulders, and his mouth, which will not shut up.

“Andrew,” he says, and then a sharp little moan. For all he’s clever-tongued most of the time, he’s generally limited to just noises when they’re together like this, like Andrew is stealing them from him.

More accurately, it’s because his burgeoning magic is stealing them. He shivers as he comes, his hands clutching too tight and his skin prickling at Andrew’s with electricity, and when Andrew kneels back up over him his eyes are silver-sheened in the thin light. Andrew did that to him. He shouldn’t like it.

He does anyway.

Andrew kisses him until he comes down, until he’s not a storm contained in a delicate flesh receptacle anymore, and then reaches into his jeans to jerk himself off.

Afterwards, Andrew rolls aside and uses someone’s shirt to wipe his hand. Neil stays in place, languid, breathing. Andrew takes the empty spot on the mattress beside him, and ignores Neil when he rolls over to face him.

“Keep your eyes to yourself,” he says eventually, tiring of the weight of Neil’s attention and the pleasure in the lax lines of his body.

“Am I annoying you?” Neil asks.

“You are irritating,” Andrew say, which isn’t an answer but is also true.

“You know you’re stuck with me now,” Neil says. There’s a thin taste of teasing in his tone, the barest quirk upwards of his mouth. On him it’s nearly a belly laugh.

“Am I?” Andrew asks. He wants to wipe that half-smile away.

“Well, unless you’re planning on killing me,” Neil corrects himself. He tilts his head, obliging, when Andrew presses closer.

Using his mouth is the best method to make Neil be quiet. “Don’t tempt me,” Andrew tells him, and kisses him until he shakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! <3
> 
> Head to the next chapter to see broship-addict's gorgeous art too!!


	5. how it all ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lyrics from [yellow flicker beat / lorde](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1S9HUNoI4k)
> 
> tumblr post [here](http://broship-addict.tumblr.com/post/163685550632)


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